Putie Stages Rescue, Media Laps It Up

Just imagine an American politician trying to pull this off. Well, I'm sure they'd let Lord Obama get away with it. After all, He can do no wrong.

He's driven a big truck, flown in a Russian fighter jet and fished shirtless on national television.

Now comes Vladimir Putin's latest image-boosting escapade, a visit to a Russian wildlife preserve that gave him the chance to wear camouflage, stalk through the woods and shoot a tiger — all for a good cause.

According to Russian media reports, Putin, taking a break from lambasting the West over Georgia, was visiting the Ussuriisky Nature Reserve in the far east of Russia to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran toward a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

"Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too," a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news.

Sure he did. Just keep believing that.

Hate to be cynical, but maybe he was looking to distract attention from the murder of another journalist.

An opposition Internet news site owner in Russia's troubled Ingushetia region was fatally shot on Sunday soon after being detained by police, and his colleagues called for a rally to protest his death.

Magomed Yevloyev is one of the most high-profile journalists to be killed in Russia since investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment in 2006, provoking condemnation of Russia's record on media freedom.

Yevloyev, owner of the www.Ingushetiya.ru website, was a vocal critic of the region's Kremlin-backed administration, accused by opponents of crushing dissent and free speech.

A lawyer for the website -- which survived repeated official attempts to close it down -- said police met Yevloyev at the steps of the aircraft after he flew in to Ingushetia's airport, put him in a Volga saloon car and drove him away.

"As they drove he was shot in the temple... They threw him out of the car near the hospital," lawyer Kaloi Akhilgov told Reuters by telephone.