The day after the Illinois senator won the US presidential race, Medvedev announced plans “to correct” Russia’s constitution and prolong his presidential term of office to 6 years from the current 4.

Why does Medvedev, who “won” the Russian presidential “race” last March insist on holding office longer than his US counterpart?

At risk of sounding heightist, Medvedev may be compensating for something. Nearly twelve inches of something to be exact: the difference between the 157-centimeter White Russian and the 187-centimeter Black American. While Russian television cameras have mastered the angles that don’t make their leader look too small, they will have a harder time when Obama comes to town than they do with, say, Sarkozy.

But the fact that Obama will have to bend over to look into Medvedev’s eyes should not be the only consolation offered to the Americans who backed McCain. A McCain presidency would have arguably better suited a Kremlin that wants to paint the world with black and white colors where America has become the evil empire. Another upside of Obama’s victory is the reaffirmation of democracy as the best system of governance humanity has invented to date and a symbolic blow against those who argue for a managing their democracies from the top down.  Can you imagine the Russians electing a Muslim Chechen as their president? Democracy will have arrived in Russia the day they do.