People who live in glass houses ...

The U.S. government is unhappy that the Russians are proposing limits on the activities of election observers in the countries covered by the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. Given how Americans think about Vladimir Putin, there's an inevitable assumption that he wants to get observers out of the way so that he and his client-state cronies can cheat their way to victory in future elections. That may well be so. I rather like the idea of an international body that monitors elections and makes judgments on their fairness. There probably ought to be a global group on the OSCE's model. But before Americans pounce on Putin and presume the worst about his proposal, they ought to wonder how welcoming their own government would be toward a similar body that appointed itself to keep an eye on those districts in those states where voter intimidation or vote suppression is alleged. Anyone who says that foreigners would have no business sticking their noses in America's business has no business trying to browbeat other sovereign countries on this question.