printMitt Romney, and everyone Republican, “seized on Obama’s comments to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in which Obama suggested greater ‘flexibility’ on negotiations regarding missile defense after the election.”
Romney launched into a scary cold-war diatribe against Russia, to which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev retorted with reference to reason and history (no wonder the Fox News report refrained from quoting Medvedev’s one-two punch):
Medvedev advised the White House hopefuls, including Romney, to “rely on reason, use their heads,” adding, “that’s not harmful for a presidential candidate.” He further said, “It’s 2012, not the mid-1970s, and whatever party he belongs to, he must take the existing realities into account.”
[ABC]
Obama is right to suggest that the US should reconsider its policy of “getting into Russia’s space and getting into Russia’s face.”
Where Obama went wrong is in carelessly revealing the Knavish connivance he shares with just about every politicians.
Republican hysteria notwithstanding, Obama’s slip of the tongue was a tactical error, no more.
UPDATE: Nicki, many would say there’s a critical-mass of evidence that the US government and its various democratic proxies do indeed meddle on the level you suggest. See “The Adventures Of America’s Alinskyites in Egypt.”
This coming from Medvedev would be more credible if the Russians didn’t blame the US for the Phobos-Grunt fail and accuse us for poll protests in December after obvious parliamentary election fraud.
Sen. Rand Paul is one of the few working to halt war with Iran, blocking Dingy Harry Reid and his Iran sanctions bill.
Ilana – thanks for addressing my comment.
I will respectfully dissent in this case. While there is some evidence that there was some “outside” help in the Egyptian revolution, none exists in the incidents in Russia. The reason it does not exist, is because we did no such thing in Russia. ROSKOSMOS head Popovkin admitted that due to limited funding, some shortcuts were taken that were risky to the Phobos-Grunt mission. A commission examining the mishap later confirmed that the incident was caused by a programming error. Nothing more.
As for demonstrations in Russia… we did not need to help them along. The protests against government corruption and fraud had been growing on their own for years, and thanks to the advent of social media, blogs, etc., which the government would love to shut down, but cannot, those protests are well attended and well advertized. Additionally, our “operatives” there are very well observed by the FSB. The only reason the accusation was even made was because of the level of dissent and the perceived decline in popular support for the ruling elite.
I hope the “everyone Republican” remark did not include my man who seems to have rejoined the Invisible Man.
As for missile defense, they used to announce the results of failure after failure until they increased the security classification so that we have no idea whether it has any chance of semblence of working.
Remember that such a “defense” might only work in a “second strike” mode – e.g. we nuke Russia first and then handle the residual disjointed response with the defense…. which is why they worry. Would the US ever attack a nation first? Ask Ghaddaffi!
Silly paranoid Rooskies!