'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
The White House said National Security Adviser Tom Donilon held "comprehensive and constructive" talks Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in preparation for President Obama's meetings with Mr. Putin later this year.
The conventional wisdom is that President Obama dodged a politically perilous "bullet" when he declined to nominate Susan Rice as the next secretary of state.
Tuesday's re-election of President Obama triggered immediate speculation about the future of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who will turn 75 in June. Mr. Panetta, defense secretary since June 2011, has had a long career in government and is said by associates to be ready to return to private life in Northern California, where he frequently visits and owns land.
Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld blamed President Obama's apologies and policies of blaming America for the ills of the world as the root cause behind the anti-U.S. violence that erupted recently in the Muslim world.
Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson is leading a major effort to plug news leaks and recently sent a memorandum to all Defense Department employees requesting that they all search their computers for information about contacts with reporters, according to defense officials familiar with the memo.
With President Obama back in the U.S. after his trip to South Korea, Speaker John Boehner sent him a letter demanding answers about comments he made to the president of Russia earlier this week,which were caught on a hot mic.
Spinning is a deceiver's art, the craft of persuading suckers they didn't really hear what they just heard. It's what modern politics is all about. President Obama has put his best spinners to work to "clarify" what he meant with his remarks in confidence to the Russians that once past November he'll have the "flexibility" to alter the American missile-defense system in a way that will please Moscow.
There is only one thing scarier for the future of America than all of the debt and bad policies President Obama has built up since his 2008 election: It's what the prospect of an Obama second term would bring. And the president isn't being honest about what his secret plans are.
U.S. intelligence agencies threw cold water on the President Obama's thus-far-unsuccessful effort to "reset" relations with Russia by making concessions to Moscow.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suffered a setback last weekend on his march to resume the Russian presidency. The weak showing for his United Russia party in Sunday's parliamentary elections raised questions whether his return to high executive office will be as smooth as expected.
President Obama, like most American presidents, is lucky that the public pays little attention to foreign policy and rarely casts its votes on the basis of presidential foreign-policy performance. It required something as dramatic as Iran's November 1979 seizure of our diplomats as hostages, followed the next month by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to turn Jimmy Carter's foreign-policy mess into a major negative issue for him in his failed 1980 re-election bid.
President Obama recently rejected a proposed missile-defense agreement with Russia that was developed by the State Department with the hope of coaxing Moscow into cooperation on countering Iranian missile threats.
Political warfare has broken out within the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, and vice chairman, Gen. James E. Cartwright facing off as bitter foes.
"I understand," Mr. Medvedev said in response. "I will transmit this information to Vladimir."
Mr. Medvedev replied, "I understand your message about space. Space for you ... ."
