ArcaMax

Maybe. But Trump's barely contained exuberance sounded eerily similar to President George W. Bush after his first face-to-face meeting with Putin in 2001. Bush came away with warm enough feelings to nickname the Russian leader "Pootie-poot," according to news reports, and describe him as "very straightforward and trustworthy."

"I was able to get a sense of his soul," said Bush.

But all of that came before Pootie-poot revealed his dark side. In the summer of 2008, Putin invaded Georgia. His troops have since pushed on to annex the Crimea and join Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad to fight both the Islamic State and Syrian rebels, some of whom are backed by the United States.

Still Trump sounded eager to defend Putin, even against widespread allegations that he "kills journalists, political opponents and ... invades countries," in the words of "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough.

"Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing also, Joe," Trump said. "There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity and that's the way it is."

Got that? Trump not only sounds remarkably unconcerned about the rise of possibly state-sanctioned murder of journalists and activists in Russia but he also suggests that the U.S. government is engaged in morally equivalent activities.

Although Trump sharply denounced the killing of journalists, he was still defending his new buddy Putin on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "In all fairness to Putin, you're saying he killed people, I haven't seen that. I don't know that he has. Have you been able to prove that?"

That's the wrong question. While critics have been hard-pressed to prove Putin ordered killings of journalists, he is widely believed to have allowed an atmosphere of impunity toward those who do kill journalists.

To Trump I recommend the website of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (full disclosure: I'm a CPJ board member). There he'll find profiles of 36 journalists who have been killed in Russia since 1992 either while doing their work or in direct reprisal for doing it.

Opposition politicians and other activists also have been killed. It is possible that individuals loyal to Putin acted on their own. Or maybe another group in Russia's various power networks committed the atrocities.

Either way, Putin's casually dismissive attitude toward murdered journalists and dissidents helps to explain Russia's culture of impunity toward such killings. It didn't begin with Putin but he's not doing enough to stop it.

Trump is understandably eager to sow some marvelous deal with Putin to bring about world peace and prosperity. But, as always, the Russian bear must be handled at a respectful distance if you don't want to be eaten alive.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.