Putin Did All the Talking

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Africa Triumph.

Excellent wordless video of the arrival of the Obama family for the first state visit to continental Africa, this time in Ghana, with clear excitement, passion, fascination and revelation. Here is the pay-off for the US, when POTUS, the Kenyan-Kansan, shows the flag in a part of the world that was left out of the 20th century’s successes. Here is the moment when the African-American First Family can sweep the headlines in the Sub-Saharan Africa. There will be no finer moment of theater and ideology for the Obama team and the US in this adminsitration than this video. Russia Nightmare:

Behind POTUS’s journey to Ghana was the POTUS embassy in Moscow, and I mention that there are large, unattractive, compelling questions about the three days in Moscow.

The word from Russian sources, via my sources, is that POTUS and his team were ineffective, presumptive, hasty, evasive, unprepared, unappreciative, aimless, superficial. There will be much more on this subject. The Russians are astonished at what they learned. There were no agreements of any significance, nor were any attempted.

One Russian commentator, who is no friend of Medvedev or Putin, but who is a Russian patriot, commented that the POTUS team made the Medvedev adminstration look sharp and timely.

I am describing a diplomatic disaster. The Russians offered the gift of overflights to Afghanistan, of energy pacts, of nuclear weapons disarmament. The POTUS team offered nothing in return. There is mention of the Obama administration’s petulance and of an American demanding of concessions in ignorance of the consequences.

Nightmare in Moscow.

The second night, POTUS stayed in the hotel while all official Moscow puzzled what could there be to this behavior. Three days in Moscow, which is a sizable commitment of official time, and the POTUS skipped the second evening. At breakfast the third day, Putin lectured POTUS for two hours. Putin usually does all the talking, however he is usually dominating Russians, not a president. Am I ringing an alarm bell?