meaning of 'a man'

[Surapon Vatanavigkit]

The following passage is from the editorial of Psychology Today (Feb. 2011) and I have trouble interpreting the meaning of “'a man”' in the last sentence:


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One decade ago, Bush and Putin held their first meeting at a verdant estate in Slovenia. After an hour behind closed doors, Bush emerged to declare the former head of the KGB “"straightforward and trustworthy." Then came the remark: "I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
The president captured exactly nothing about the notoriously enigmatic Putin, a man so remote and contradictory that his biographers confess to being baffled by him. Bush did, however, describe a man well known to Americans: a non-intellectual who values loyalty above all else.
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My question: Whom does Bush describe: himself, Putin, or somebody else?

[5jj]

'... a man who is well known to Americans'. Does that help? It's Putin.