Is Medvedev Putin's Taft?

You may not believe it, but there are some strange between iconic US President Theodore Roosevelt and Russia’s former (and also iconic) President Vladimir Putin. Both were self-styled outdoorsmen, both were young when they took the office of president, a job neither man was expected to ever take (Putin was plucked from relative obscurity by Boris Yeltsin in the waning days of his presidency, while Roosevelt took the office after the assassination of Pres. McKinney).

And now there could be another link developing between the two of them - the men they chose to be their successor could each turn out to have a mind of their own.

After two terms in office Roosevelt tapped William Howard Taft to run on the Republican ticket in his place, thinking that Taft would continue Roosevelt's campaign of progressive government reforms. But when Taft didn’t live up to Roosevelt’s version of progressivism, he ran against him as a third party candidate, splitting the Republican vote and giving Democrat Woodrow Wilson the presidency.

Putin, constitutionally prevented from seeking a third term, also picked a relatively obscure successor - St. Petersburg lawyer, Dmitry Medvedev. Since his announcement as candidate, Medvedev has been looked on as Putin's puppet by many observers both in Russia and abroad. But in recent weeks, Medvedev has been taking steps to move out of the bosses' shadow.

The split has been brewing (as reported here a few weeks ago) since the two differed on how to deal with tax protestors in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East (Putin wanted to take a hard line, Medvedev supported a local official who let the protestors protest). Since then the two have been quietly been taking different paths. Medvedev criticized the government’s response to the recent economic crisis as too slow, even though Putin is the point man on the economy. Medvedev also ordered a new law that would have drastically cracked down on dissidents - a law drafted by Putin - to be reconsidered before going on the books.

According to the Washington Post the two have even started to have a third party take minutes of their meetings because of past “disagreements” about what each of them said. And Medvedev sat down with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and editor Dmitri Muratov of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta - for a wide-ranging interview in the wake of the murder of journalist Anastasia Baburova, a young reporter killed in Moscow a few weeks ago.

The Putin-Medvedev duopoly has brought back a classic Soviet parlor game - trying to figure out just who is in charge at the Kremlin. Of course that people are even wondering who is in charge means that Medvedev may in fact be stepping from out of Putin’s shadow. Could he turn out to be Putin's Taft after all?