Eh... just think of him as Dobby the elf from "Harry Potter" and he's not that bad.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/browa...5076263.htm?1c
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...ening+Standard
Seriously, he's trying to restore Russia to some semblance of it's former glory. After the Soviet Union fell, Russia was a joke with a bumbling drunk as it's leader. Putin is definitely not Yelstin. He's going about his country's war on terror a different way than ours (whether Chechnya should be granted independence or not is a different debate, but the Chechens are currently employing tactics that are indubitably terrorist), and if anything, maybe he should be an example of how things really are better here than anywhere else.
-Mikey