Hey Barack, the 80s called. They wanted to know how their foreign policy was working out for you these days.
Apparently not all that great.
Barack Obama called Vladimir Putin and warned him about hacking Hillary’s emails. Barack told Putin to knock it off. Barack told Putin there might be consequences. That’s not fake news. That’s what Barack Obama himself said in what was blessedly his last press conference of 2016 and one of the last of his Presidency.
The irony in all this is that Obama’s arrogance, diffidence, and petulance render him unable to see the obvious problem in this particular narrative. His narrative is supposed to plant the seed of a strong, deliberate Obama in the soil that is his legacy. We’re to assume he actually contacted Putin and told him these things in no uncertain terms. Let’s take Barack at his word and agree that he really did pick up the phone, call Putin, and throw down. The result?
A gi-normous “F you” to the President of the United States.
But why?
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, elder Bush, Clinton, and younger Bush all were pretty adept at dealing with their Soviet or Russian counterparts during their tenures in office. (For the millennials that don’t know why I said “Soviet or Russian”, you’re welcome). Obama stands alone as the panty-waist that doesn’t seem to show up as an equal in his foreign counterpart’s worldview.
This is what happens when you establish red lines in Syria and forget about them the minute they are crossed. When Iranians rise up against the mullahs and instead of supporting them you sit idle and watch the Islamic Republic kill their own. Or when your Secretary of State has to be rescued from nuclear negotiations with the Iranian Foreign Minister because the latter is nose to nose shouting your guy down and scaring the beejezus out of him to the point John Kerry might wet himself. Add to this any of the numerous instances in which Barack Obama saw a major world event cross his desk and then promptly hid behind his “leading from behind” doctrine.
That doctrine by the way also isn’t a figment of fake news. Never forget that initially the media couldn’t exalt the idea of leadership from behind enough. From Chris Matthews to The View they all thought the idea of leading from behind was the best thing since Nero covered “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” while Rome burned (if you got that, you’re welcome).
For eight years Barack Obama exhibited the weakest of weak foreign policies and the results are that on the global stage, he’s considered a wimp. The Olympics Committee felt that way when he flew out to meet with them and bring the games to Chicago but instead they picked Rio. Putin feels that way when the phone rings and it’s the faculty lounge at 1600 Pennsylvania calling to lecture him about something.
Kind of like when you were in school and there was that one class you had to pass to graduate. But that one class was so boring so you sat there for the fifty minutes that trudged on and on and on, trying not to fall asleep while the teacher droned on and on and on. Knowing that if you endured the seemingly mindless lecturing, in time you’d be able to go on about doing the things you wanted to do.
Thus, Obama supposedly called up Putin and told him to quit hacking Hillary Clinton. If he ever really did. Didn’t Obama also say there was nothing interesting to be found in any of those hacked emails? That’s not fake news. That too is straight from Obama’s mouth.
photo credit: svennevenn Putin vs Obama via photopin (license)
