Wouldn't you like to have been in the White House Situation Room when the president decided to take out Osama bin Laden? Thrilling, right? You'd have been part of history and have stories to tell your grandchildren. Well, you can't. Not even if you donate a million dollars to the Obama re-election campaign. Sorry, Bill Mocker, you'll have to wait for the movie. It's Top Secret.
Nor can you listen in when the president is at one of his G-8 Summits (or is it G-20 by now?) It would doubtless be interesting to learn what the bigwigs are deciding about international trade and technology issues. It would be valuable, too, as you are filling out your own stock portfolio. Sorry, no entry allowed. Authorized Personnel only. And you are not authorized.
So, it's rare and exciting when we actually get to eavesdrop on conversations at the Summit when high matters of state are being resolved between President Barack Obama and outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. We have to thank Jake Tapper of ABC News. He played this one straight.
No tingling went up and down his leg as Tapper reported on one of the most shocking conversations ever held by an American president. Instead, the hair should go up on every American's neck when we overhear something as chilling as this conversation.
A press microphone, described by one journalist as a highly sensitive "shotgun mike," picked up President Obama and Medvedev in an appalling exchange during a recent summit in Seoul, Korea.
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it's important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you...
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
Here, President Obama is confiding information to Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB agent, that he would not confide in us. He is telling Putin to cool it until November 6th. After that, Mr. Obama will have more "flexibility."
Flexibility for what? For making even more concessions than he made in the weak and unenforceable START treaty? (That treaty was the one so unwisely ratified in late 2010 by the "lame duck" Senate in the 111th Congress.)
The summit Mr. Obama was attending with Medvedev in Seoul was just a few miles from the one of the most dangerous flashpoints on earth, the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. Has Russia been helpful in restraining North Korea's nuclear program? Not at all. Are the Russians helpful in Syria ? They are backing dictator Bashar al-Assad to the hilt. Are they helpful with Iran ? They actually designed and built portions of Iran's nuclear reactors.
Russia has sent spies to the United States . When the FBI nabbed ten of them, just weeks before the president's 2010 "Hamburger Summit" with Medvedev in northern Virginia, the spies were allowed to go home. They weren't extensively interrogated to learn who their contacts were in this country. They weren't even required to go through a TSA pat-down. Small wonder that Medvedev munched on Mr. Obama's fries at Ray's Hell Burger. The Russian just ate his lunch.
What we see in this "secret" exchange between Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev confirms the worst fears of Americans about our national leadership. Iran is supplying weapons that have killed American soldiers -- in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And Russia has been aiding Iran.
The Russians are not our friends. No one wants a new Cold War to break out. And we certainly don't want a hot war. But, again, at least since Vladimir Putin's rise to power on New Year's Eve, 1999, Russia has not been our friend.
President Obama's willingness to conspire -- that is literally what the word means -- with Dmitry Medvedev at a secret meeting raises the most serious questions about his character and his policy. This should not be a one-day story. This should be an issue of the highest concern to all Americans, regardless of party or politics.
Famed ex-communist Whittaker Chambers was deeply depressed when Harry Truman was re-elected in 1948. He thought he had become a "witness" against Alger Hiss, a top appointee of Franklin Roosevelt, and had provided stunning testimony of disloyalty at the highest levels of our government -- all for naught. Chambers feared that Truman re-elected would soften his stance against Russian subversion. But a Baltimore lawyer, top Democrat Richard Cleveland, came to Chambers and told him to take heart. He was telling the truth and the country would listen. That Democrat was the son of President Grover Cleveland. In those days, we could rely on both parties being loyal. We need that reliance again.
Ken Blackwell, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Relations Commission.
Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Syria Is Obama's Srebrenica
Obama tells Russia's Medvedev more flexibility after election | Reuters
Obama Caught on Microphone Telling Medvedev of 'Flexibility ...
Obama caught on mic telling Medvedev to give US 'space' on ...
Adolescent ignorance. I suspect no one has ever accused you of relevance but you should attempt to appreciate how ironically your piece supports Obama's position.
You try and build Russia up as such a sinister force and mention Iran, but fail to mention that Russia did not block the most recent sanctions? Hardly Iran's best bud. Of course Russia has their own agenda that doesn't always mesh with ours, no surprise there, but they are hardly the evil empire. Step out of the 1980s and look around a moment.
Your entire post is a spotlit example of why there can be no substantive talks with Russia till after the election. Just as the President said to Medvedev! Apparently even an 'off camera' exchange about political realities is too ominous for some people to handle logically!
Erik
http://eaprince.blogspot.com
Thankfully by 2006 we woke up and KB was soundly defeated for Gov.
I think many GOP could not vote for a black guy....hahahaha....
even when he shines their shoes so well.....I have followed
KB as he is from Cincinnati.....he's a black Catholic who desperately
tries to suck up to the Super Rich elite running the GOP, tries
to be the crazy conservative they want to promote....they
hoped he might be Pres someday....hahahaha
Now he is stuck with some fancy titles like "fellow"....
sorry Ken, not much to be proud of huh.....
but speeches to right wing groups probably make
him $ 20-30,000 a pop.....
He pretended to be a moderate for several years....
I used to like him !
For 2004 he should be doing 10-30 years !
I propose an immediate constitutional amendment requiring all those vying to be elected to public office be required, by law, to initiate the undertaking of putting their promises into effect within 6 months of being elected, or being required to step down immediately, for a by-election.
What is happening, openly, before our knowing eyes, is a travesty, and would make for great comedy if it did not play so catastrophically with the lives of people and nations.
"The most common system that is deemed "democratic" in the modern world is parliamentary democracy in which the voting public takes part in elections and chooses politicians to represent them in a Legislative Assembly. The members of the assembly then make decisions with a majority vote. A PURER FORM IS DIRECT DEMOCRACY in which the voting public makes direct decisions or participates directly in the political process. Elements of direct democracy exist on a local level and on exceptions on national level in many countries, though these systems coexist with representative assemblies."
My point is that in all democracies today, politicians get elected on a given platform, which the electorate believes (as it should) will be the direction that the leadership and government will take. How often have we heard "Read my lips. No new taxes" only to hear upon ascension to office, "I had no idea how bad the financial situation was...." If you want to use President Obama as an example, when running he declared that "Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of the Jewish state." We know where he went once he was elected. Rabin was elected in Israel on a platform of not talking to the PLO, but then presented the secret talks on the ill-fated Oslo Accords as a fait accompli.
Sharon was elected on a platform of "not one inch" and then evacuated Gaza. Leadership has certain powers that checks and balances cannot void, and while there is always the next election, some actions become irrevocable.
Given today's electronic capabilities, pure democracy, for the people, of the people, by the people is certainly possible. I am not sure that utopia is necessarily always desirable (the law of unintended consequences) but saying one thing to the electorate before the election, knowing that other actions (that the electorate would not vote for if it knew) are contemplated when there is more "flexibility", is fraudulent, and frightening.