I would agree that most of these TV appearances lately are just book promotion – which is part and parcel of sharing his larger story.

But among the more cynical conversations I have had recently with a journalist (who shall not be named), I heard the argument that there are some who speculate that the siloviki LOVE the fact that Kasparov is the face of the opposition – for what else motivates the Nashi more than an Armenian Jew? Terribly cynical, I know, but there are people saying this – that it is easier to paint him as an outsider – a non-Russian. At least that would explain why they only put him on Russian TV when he is speaking English.

Gary is appearing on these shows (Colbert and Maher) because he knows that he doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning any elections in Russia, but that he can win more support from the US government. If nothing else, maybe that support will land him a nice salary from the CIA. Although more likely than that, his publisher put him up to these appearances to win more book sales.

A lot of what he has to say makes sense to me, although he comes up with some utter rubbish from time to time.

I’m not so sure he’s all that important though, particularly in Russia. His main appeal, rather like Khodorkovsky, seems to be international, rather than domestic, and in the eyes of many in Russia that’s probably more of a drawback than a benefit.

But Kasparov is certainly keeping Russian democracy in the public eye, and he’s one of the few (perhaps the only?) significant personality in Russia who seems to be keeping the debate on democracy alive, so who knows – maybe in 10 or 20 years people like me will have to revise our opinion of Kasparov’s impact on Russian politics.

He gets trashed daily by the Putinista commentators in the blogosphere, gets trashed by the most infamous russophobe (most recently on our blog), and now, even now the chess purists are complaining.

I must be the only guy left in the world who still finds him to be an interesting and important figure.