Russian Winter

So now, the President has decided that the right thing to do while he is in Russia, is to ignore and dismiss his Russian counterpart. That is probably the dumbest and most dangerous idea he has had in his 4 plus years as President.

Apparently, he doesn't get it when the leader of the host country invites you to his place for a one-on-one meeting, it is good to go. Vlad is giving Barry an opportunity to discuss his grievances, especially about the Snowden debacle and the Middle East nightmare, and Barry decides to take a pass. Instead, he will travel across the Baltic Sea to visit Sweden, the country who gave him the Peace Prize in 2009.

Maybe he is going there to return it, because any logical person will see that during his presidency, he didn't do anything to earn it. This is the defining moment in his presidency as it relates to foreign affairs, and he says "Nope. Not interested."

I wrote about this in "Chess, Anyone?" back in June, about the difference between outright losing and losing due to a withdrawal. Withdrawing is worse because you when you concede, you realize you are in a hopeless position. Basically, a surrender.

So now by skipping the summit, President Obama is admitting defeat in the psychological warfare of diplomacy. Even when Kennedy and Krushchev were at death's door during the Cuban Missile Crisis, they never stopped talking.

During his African trip, when asked if he had spoken with President Putin about Snowden, his flippant reply was that he didn't have to. That should have telegraphed to any Obama-watcher that he has allowed his personal, petulant views of the Russian President cloud his vision of the bigger picture.

If he doesn't change his mind before the G-20 Summit in St Petersburg, it will be a cold and frosty winter. And, as you know, the Russians can deal with the cold. Just look at Napoleon and Hitler. They didn't get it when the Russian winter all but destroyed them.

Sadly, neither does President Obama.