1.8.13

Vladimir Putin Finishes Task of Neutering American Presidency




By John W. Lillpop

President Barack Obama has lost much of the adoration of the world community as a result of weak, indecisive, or just wrong headed policies which he has pursued over the past four plus years.

Once viewed as an omnipotent messiah figure with the vision and charisma to solve all problems, large and small, Obama has been whittled down to a clueless, in-over-his-head community organizer who more often than not makes things worse. Sort of like the confused fire fighter who uses gasoline in feeble attempts to extinguish fires.

The president’s failures are not fake, and are not just domestic issues promoted by a hostile GOP Congress.

Indeed, Obama’s impotence and tendency to fail has been brought into focus by Russia’s Vladimir Putin who ignored Obama’s plea for the return of Edward Snowden, opting instead to grant Snowden asylum in Russia for a year.

So, what the hell happened to the “Reset” of American-Russian relations Mr. President?


As reported at the reference:

MOSCOW — Brushing aside pleas and warnings from President Obama and other senior Americans, Russia granted Edward J. Snowden temporary asylum and allowed him to walk free out of a Moscow airport transit zone on Thursday despite the risk of a breach in relations with the United States.

Russia’s decision, which infuriated American officials, ended five weeks of legal limbo for Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence analyst wanted by the United States for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, and opened a new phase of his legal and political odyssey.

Even as his leaks continued with new disclosures from the computer files he downloaded, Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live — and conceivably even work — anywhere here for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of American prosecutors. Though some supporters expect him to seek permanent sanctuary elsewhere, possibly in Latin America, Mr. Snowden now has an international platform to continue defending his actions as a whistle-blower exposing wrongdoing by the American government.

In a statement issued by WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy organization that has been assisting him since he made his disclosures in June, Mr. Snowden thanked Russia for giving him permission to enter the country “in accordance with its laws and international obligations.” He accused the Obama administration of disregarding domestic and international law since his disclosures, but added that “in the end, the law is winning.”

And so is that Snowden is winning as well against the juvenile antics of the bungling amateur in the White House.

The big question: Can the Republic survive another 3+ years of Barack Obama before we re-set our government to a responsible mode?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/world/europe/edward-snowden-russia.html?_r=0