VLADIMIR PUTIN, STALIN-LITE

So this Putin guy in Russia turns out to be Rodney Dangerfield with an army. He's all bent out of shape about the lack of respect Russia gets these days, seeing all sorts of perceived insults from the rest of the world since the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight back in 1991. He calls the breakup of the Soviet Union a "national catastrophe" and now apparently he wants to put the worms back in the can. After years of devastating Chechnya and returning that small nation to Russian Federal control, Mr. Putin now attacks Georgia, seeking to carve out two chunks of that nation and calling for the head of the Georgian president for his trophy room.

So you've got to figure this guy is just a sentimental slob, longing for the good old days of the Cold War. To many of us who came of age staring down the barrels of a thousand multi-megaton warheads every single day, that seems like a strange thing to miss. But, hey, human nature is capricious. Some people collect seashells, others long for the good old days of the Big Band Era. To each his own, right? Well, not quite. There are limits to the acceptable hobbies people pursue. While we can sympathize with old Vladimir for missing the glory days when he ran the KGB and struck terror into the hearts of his own countrymen, we don't really have to, anymore than we have to pity the serial killer behind bars pining for that golden time of his life that he was free to dismember trusting innocents and taunt the police with cryptic notes.

Mr. Putin came of age well after the salad days of Soviet butchery, the Stalinist purges and the mass deportations to the Gulags that cost tens of millions of innocent lives. Their greatest triumph, the grabbing of half of Europe after the Second World War, was long accomplished before he joined the KGB. But young Vladimir was dreamer, you see, and ached to be a part of the history of brutal repression and secret kidnappings that made his nation great. His zeal for treachery earned him swift promotion through the ranks until he found himself in one of the Soviet Union's most important seats of power, Assistant Director of the KGB, the poster boy for old-style tyranny.

Unfortunately for him, just as he was approaching the pinnacle of his power and being groomed to be the boss of all bosses like his idol Josef "The Butcher" Stalin, the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards and the Soviet Union was no more. That took the whole world by surprise and created a boom in the map-making industry as dozens of new nations were created and many old nations re-emerged from Soviet hibernation. While Russia itself still remained the largest nation on earth, their power to terrorize the planet evaporated with the Soviet system. Vladimir Putin felt cheated, figuring what's the point of being a heinous bully if you can't roll your tanks into Hungary or Poland and shoot up the place once in a while?

He was like a star athlete being groomed to lead a famous championship team, but by the time he arrives in the big leagues the team's big stars have all retired or are past their prime, the championship years a thing of the past in spite of the presence of their talented young star. Championships are built by a team, and the Soviet team just wasn't what it used to be with all the key players gone or ineffective. So young Vlad had to content himself with being the big fish in a reduced pond, lashing out where and when he could, trying to pretend the bear still had some teeth. He even figured out a way to circumvent the new and distasteful democracy of his nation, installing a puppet president after the last elections and holding onto the reins of power as Prime Minister.

And so the difficult job of being the next President of the United States just got infinitely harder. Not only does he have to clean up the many disasters created by Bush The Younger, but now he has to contend with Stalin-Lite trying to restart the Cold War. Do we return to the days of the Strategic Air Command having nuclear bombers in the air at all times just in case Mr. Putin has a really vexing day and launches a nuclear strike? Endless proxy wars between hapless little nations field-testing the latest weaponry of the dueling superpowers? Schoolchildren in both nations traumatized by having to hide under their flimsy desks in futile nuclear war drills every week? While these things may warm the heart of Vladimir Putin, the rest of the world isn't so amused by these prospects.

Europe must be feeling pretty edgy right now. Their two decades of peace and prosperity, their European Union, their reduced military budgets, these things are all in peril now that Russian tanks are rolling in Europe again. Talk about your monkey wrench in the machine. This guy Putin is no blockhead like Bush The Younger blundering his way through a term-limited rule, but a guy who's relatively young at 55 and could be around for a couple of more decades making life pretty dicey for his neighbors. He's Rodney Dangerfield with a lifetime of resentment and the perception of missed opportunities. Instead of being the man who could have led Russia into a new era of post-Cold War greatness, he's determined to avenge any and all perceived slights and bring back the Golden Age of Tyranny. Hopefully his countrymen will depose him, or in time-honored Russian tradition, put a bullet through his head and we can all get on with our lives. There's a lot of very good reasons why few people miss the Soviet Union.