“You better stop stealing money from your mother’s purse, young man, or I will punish you late this year or perhaps sometime in 2018,” said no parent who was serious about punishment.
Yet that’s pretty much what President Obama did with his old-fashioned expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over alleged political hacking by Moscow interests going back 18 months.
A very strange retro-response from a president who mocked Mitt Romney for suggesting in 2012 that Russia was America’s worst strategic threat. Obama said: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
As has often happened when Obama shoots from the lip sans teleprompter (think his red line in Syria, ISIS is a JV squad), the aloof one is wrong.
Obama’s been golfing and snorkeling in Hawaii since mid-December. But he left orders for a number of last-minute steps, including more ineffective sanctions against Russia and a stunning historic break with Israel. Indeed, these measures smell more of vengeance than practical policy.
Petty political ploys are standard operating procedure back in the Chicago wards that spawned Obama’s career. They’re less expected at the presidential level. In fact, Russia’s president declined to retaliate.
Anyone needs an oversized ego to see themselves as president of all of Obama’s alleged 57 United States. But Obama’s ego is larger even than the million-acre national monument he recently imposed on Utah.
And when Obama’s ego rubs against those of other, let’s say, non-self-effacing egos like Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, friction is inevitable.
With Putin, Obama’s actions smack of a jilted suitor. Remember in 2009 when Obama was in full Russia suck-up mode announcing a botched reset in relations with Moscow and even unilaterally canceling a missile defense system within former Soviet satellites, without telling them?
Like most dictatorships getting what they want, Russia reacted predictably, not by cooperating in return but by pushing for more. (See Munich Pact with Hitler, 1938.) The Putin gang did not help restrain Iran, but sold it sophisticated arms in defiance of U.N sanctions.
Russia annexed Crimea, fomented guerrilla war in Ukraine, moved militarily into Syria and the Mideast, seeks to undermine NATO and harassed U.S. military at sea.
And Russians, according to U.S. intelligence sources, also hacked the emails of Democrat organizations and operatives to their extreme political embarrassment during a presidential race.
more
President Obama's Russia punishment seems the work of a jilted suitor, columnist writes | McClatchy DC
Yet that’s pretty much what President Obama did with his old-fashioned expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over alleged political hacking by Moscow interests going back 18 months.
A very strange retro-response from a president who mocked Mitt Romney for suggesting in 2012 that Russia was America’s worst strategic threat. Obama said: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
As has often happened when Obama shoots from the lip sans teleprompter (think his red line in Syria, ISIS is a JV squad), the aloof one is wrong.
Obama’s been golfing and snorkeling in Hawaii since mid-December. But he left orders for a number of last-minute steps, including more ineffective sanctions against Russia and a stunning historic break with Israel. Indeed, these measures smell more of vengeance than practical policy.
Petty political ploys are standard operating procedure back in the Chicago wards that spawned Obama’s career. They’re less expected at the presidential level. In fact, Russia’s president declined to retaliate.
Anyone needs an oversized ego to see themselves as president of all of Obama’s alleged 57 United States. But Obama’s ego is larger even than the million-acre national monument he recently imposed on Utah.
And when Obama’s ego rubs against those of other, let’s say, non-self-effacing egos like Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, friction is inevitable.
With Putin, Obama’s actions smack of a jilted suitor. Remember in 2009 when Obama was in full Russia suck-up mode announcing a botched reset in relations with Moscow and even unilaterally canceling a missile defense system within former Soviet satellites, without telling them?
Like most dictatorships getting what they want, Russia reacted predictably, not by cooperating in return but by pushing for more. (See Munich Pact with Hitler, 1938.) The Putin gang did not help restrain Iran, but sold it sophisticated arms in defiance of U.N sanctions.
Russia annexed Crimea, fomented guerrilla war in Ukraine, moved militarily into Syria and the Mideast, seeks to undermine NATO and harassed U.S. military at sea.
And Russians, according to U.S. intelligence sources, also hacked the emails of Democrat organizations and operatives to their extreme political embarrassment during a presidential race.
more
President Obama's Russia punishment seems the work of a jilted suitor, columnist writes | McClatchy DC
