The soon-to-be-former-President (and Prime Minister-in-waiting) of Russia does not have to put up with the whims of the media, apparently. When the newspaper Moskovsky Korrespondent recently reported that Putin was dumping his wife for a diminutive trophy babe, a 24-year-old Olympic champion gymnast no less, Putin shut down the newspaper within days of the scandalous revelation. Take that, you unyielding journalistic insects.

Poor old Bill and Barack have no such recourse, but they're no doubt taking mental notes on Putin's swift, retaliatory response. If the media continues to turn up the heat here in First Amendment Land, maybe one of Barack's old Chicago operatives has a friend who has a friend who knows the publisher at Tribune Co., or maybe the Clintons could call in a favor to a Saudi sheik Bill has formerly partied with and ask His Sultanship to make a hostile takeover bid for News Corporation's Fox News Channel.

Otherwise, they're out there 24/7 without a net. We know Obama was caught on tape in San Francisco, complaining about annoying working class Americans who are so tormented by their lives that they have no choice but to cling to worship and gun ownership. But that apparently did not leave him suitably leery of the media's audo equipment.

This week in Scranton, Pa., Obama made a morning appearance at a diner, seated at a counter, suffocated, no doubt, by the bitterness all around him. In an apparent lapse by Obama's campaign staff, reporters and camera crews were permitted to cozy up as Obama was about to hunker down with a syrup-covered waffle.

What, someone asked, is Obama's view of President Jimmy Carter's recent meeting with leaders of the terrorist organization Hamas?

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?" Obama sneered, suggesting a hint of bitterness about the prospect of a cold meal.

The reporter, fearless that her media outlet would be shut down because she insisted on doing her job, phrased the Hamas question again and pressed for an answer. "Just let me eat my waffle," Obama bristled.

Clinton's media trouble came when chatting with a radio station by telephone Monday night, trying to bolster his wife Hillary's Presidential campaign. The inquisitor dared to ask the former President if he regretted comparing Obama's earlier primary win in South Carolina to a 1988 South Carolina primary victory by longshot black presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. Clinton rambled on about how the uproar was actually Obama's camp using the "race card" on him.

Then he hung up. Or so he thought. The interview was over, but Clinton kept talking with audio rolling at the radio station in Delaware.

"I don't think I should take any sh-- from anybody on that, do you?" Clinton whined, the line still live.

At least President Clinton has evolved beyond, "Just let Monica and I eat our double cheeseburgers!"

So let us crystalize the words of these campaign weary men. Sen. Obama declined to criticize, or even comment on, the indefensible and reckless behavior of a former President (Carter) and fellow liberal even as Carter seeks to connect with the agenda of Hamas and to better understand its blood thirsty, terror bent organizers.

Obama has given new meaning to waffling. And it is not a trivial re-definition as his silence on Carter is making me nervous that Obama thinks Jimmah is doing the patriotic thing.

Clinton has reminded us that he actually believes he formerly reigned as "the first black president". All these years later he doesn't understand that no one was buying it. He has an office in Harlem, but his brain resides on Mars, or beyond.

Meanwhile, the Clinton and Obama media strategists are probably adopting a new approach when faced with a media firestorm: "What would Vladimir Putin do?"