2 popular misconceptions about Russia get a thorough reconsideration in Columbia University scholar Timothy Frye's new book, Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia.  One, Frye says, is that Russia is always Russia -- the same place and culture and two, that Vladimir Putin has changed everything. What's the reality? Putin is definitely the boss of a "personalist autocracy," but like Erdogan, Orban and other me-first dictators, he operates in a world of restraints and difficult choices.