...At this point, whatever the president’s post-November plans might be, Team Obama should have come out tough on Russia, reassuring the country that U.S. national interests were in safe hands and that the president wasn’t planning to give away the store. Instead, the White House press secretary announced “…it’s in the interest of the United States to work cooperatively with the Russians. And that’s what he’s going to do.” This makes it sound like Obama is indeed planning to make sweeping, politically unpalatable concessions to the Russians. The Romney camp must be thanking its lucky stars.
If Team Obama had instead come out with a hard line on Moscow, the Russians would most likely have understood; indeed, during his own presidential campaign, Putin came down very hard against the U.S. A similar strategy for Obama would have not have ruffled many feathers in Russia, and would have reduced the impact of the mike miscue as an issue.
That didn’t happen, and Team Obama has just made it significantly easier for the Republicans to run against Vladimir Putin and both his foreign and domestic policies. In American politics, that is the winning side of the issue. A hard hitting editorial in the Washington Post drives the point home; President Obama has tied himself to a shaky anti-American regime and the mike gaffe was an indicator of things to come.
