While Washington is worried about Main Street, in Russia the government wants to rescue the oligarchs — at the expense of the Russian taxpayer. ~Garry Kasparov

In fact, both are quite similar: the government is using taxpayer money to bail out powerful financial interests that have developed a strong relationship with the government. In theory, the benefit and cost to the public is much the same, but when it is done in Moscow it is a horrendous swindle. It seems to me that if it is a swindle there, it is a swindle here as well. However, I suppose that’s not something that one would want to mention in the oligarchs’ preferred paper.

I don’t know whether Kasparov really believes the administration line that our bailout was aimed at protecting “Main Street” interests or if he is just being careless in reminding people that our bailout was more or less directed to our own set of oligarchs. Either way, this is perhaps the weakest point in a typically weak Kasparov article, which argues that unless Obama becomes even more fervently anti-Russian, er, anti-Putin he will have forfeited the mantle of change. Is it any wonder why Russian liberals go nowhere?