How Putin Bullies Obama

National Journal ^ | 26 Mar 2014 | Ron Fournier

[mandaladon]

On a playground or in a bar, the most important thing to know about a bully is his motivation. What ticks him off? Who's his next victim? If it's you, how do you avoid a butt-kicking?

On the world stage, Vladimir Putin is a bully – and President Obama not only seems clueless about the Russian leader's inner drive, he embraces his ambivalence. "I'm less interested in motivation," Obama said Monday in The Hague, "and more interested in the facts and the principles that not only the United States but the entire international community are looking to uphold."

Taken at face value, it's a disturbing response from a world leader who should lie awake at night concerned about the motivation of U.S. adversaries, whose first meeting of every day involves an intelligence briefing on the motivations of global actors.

It could be that Obama is playing mind games with Putin, looking into the soul that transfixed President Bush 13 years ago and seeing a man whose greatest weakness is parochial hubris. Want to hurt Putin? Say you don't care about him. In a verbal equivalent of a groin punch, Obama might dismiss Russia as a "regional power" that antagonizes its neighbors "out of weakness."

But it's hard to credit Obama with such savvy calculation. I take him at his word: He doesn't care.

First, his handling of leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, China and most recently Russia exposes a lack of empathy and sophistication. As Julie Pace of The Associated Press put it in her question to Obama at The Hague, "You've been criticized during this dispute with Russia as not understanding President Putin's motivations. As recently as last month, you and others in your administration said you thought Putin was reflecting or pausing his incursion into Crimea.

[kiryandil]

On the world stage, Vladimir Putin is a bully

Someone should get a quote from Ron "Obama Administration Buttboy" Fournier about exactly how many people Putin has murdered via drone.

If Putin pulled the same crap that President Ambiguously Gay MomJeans has pulled with ONE remote killing, Obama's Media would be hyperventilating 24/7/365.

Shut up, Fournier.

[kiryandil]

So when Obama tells the world that "Russia is acting out of weakness," he risks sounding like the guy who gets beat up in a bar then brags about the bully's bloody knuckles.

Even though Ron Fournier appears to be nudging, then haranguing the wimpy MomJeans to "get tough", what's REALLY amusing is that if the Demoncrats try to play the "Tough Nationalist Support-The-Government-Against-the-Mean-Russian-Commies" card, the rest of us who didn't vote for the little sissy get to flip off any appeals to patriotism.

You people can stuff it. You told Bush to stuff it, now the shoe's on the other foot.

Peace, man.

[Pagey]

bttt