TANNED, RESTED, & CONFUSED:

Missing Russian Candidate Is Found Alive (STEVEN LEE MYERS, 2/10/04, NY Times)

Just as bizarrely as he disappeared on Thursday, a Russian presidential candidate reappeared today — alive, well rested and confused about the furor.

"I decided last week to take a break from all the bustle around me," Ivan P. Rybkin told Interfax from Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, by way of explaining his disappearance, which terrified his family and his campaign aides and prompted a police manhunt for his whereabouts.

Mr. Rybkin, a former speaker of parliament who is challenging President Vladimir V. Putin in an election now barely a month away, managed to roil, if briefly and now farcically, a race whose outcome is universally considered a foregone conclusion. [...]

His disappearance raised fears that something untoward had happened to him, prompting speculation that he had been a victim of politically motivated violence. In the days before he left, he openly criticized Mr. Putin for cultivating close ties with business tycoons and eroding democratic freedoms in Russia.

"raised fears"? "prompting speculation"? It's as if the press wasn't even involved in the raising and prompting.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2004 2:46 PM