Mirror images  Presidents Putin and Bush will meet at G8 next
week. But they have much more in common than they think.     •
theguardian.com,     • Jump to comments ()  Next week's G8
summit will probably be the last such meeting for Presidents
George W Bush and Vladimir Putin. Seven years ago, at their
first meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Bush looked into Putin's
eyes and somehow spotted the soul of a Christian gentleman, not
that of a secret policeman. Next week, they shouldn't be
surprised if they see a mirror of each other, because both men
have exemplified the arrogance of power.  Bush and Putin both
came to power in 2000, a year when their countries were
scrambling to regain international respect: Russia from the
chaos of the Yeltsin years and the US from the failed
impeachment of President Clinton. Each country thought it was
acquiring an unthreatening mediocrity. But both men, on finding
themselves in positions of authority, ruled from their default
positions: Bush as an evangelical convinced that Go