XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: mike.darling@thinkprogress.org   
      
   As he seeks to rebuild the Russian empire, strongman Vladimir   
   Putin has developed a terribly obnoxious habit.   
      
   He keeps dragging the Obama White House back to a difficult   
   place.   
      
   It's called "reality."   
      
   Putin's military capture of Crimea, a region of Ukraine, is just   
   the latest example. His could be an act of willfulness, or a   
   desperate attempt to stave off Russian decline. But in any case,   
   no sane American would argue for a shooting war over Ukraine.   
   The point is to avoid miscalculations that could lead to one.   
      
   It's like that phone call at 3 a.m. to a White House run by an   
   inexperienced leader, that call Hillary Clinton warned America   
   about years ago.   
      
   Her devastating 2008 campaign spot of that ringing phone,   
   arguing that Barack Obama was not ready for the call, was   
   profound. And it was profoundly forgotten.   
      
   It faded away as America was captured instead by his soaring   
   rhetoric and the messianic politics orchestrated by Obama's   
   mythmakers.   
      
   Clinton's campaign was gutted by Obama's expert and cynical use   
   of the race card. The Democratic Party arithmetic made it   
   impossible to win without African-American voters. And she lost   
   them when he said hello.   
      
   As Clinton receded, wounded, humiliated by the devastating label   
   of racial insensitivity, the American media grew bored with her.   
   But journalists found a new hobby: placing laurel wreaths upon   
   the head of Mr. Obama.   
      
   Vesting a nation's leader with unearned virtues isn't   
   particularly American. The same goes on in the Russian media.   
      
   Putin is portrayed at home as a man of action, the strongman of   
   Russia who tames bears and conquers other wild beasts, sometimes   
   with his will alone, and sometimes with his shirt on.   
      
   But good intelligence services are not run by sentimentalists.   
   These are people of cold mind.   
      
   And somewhere in the Kremlin, there must be a dossier on Obama,   
   something a bit more comprehensive than media gushing about his   
   use of symbolism.   
      
   What would such a Russian dossier tell Putin about the nature of   
   the man?   
      
   It would tell Putin that Obama rose on the wings of an America   
   tired of war.   
      
   And that Obama flew skyward, preaching about ethics, and   
   promising hope and change we could believe in, all of it   
   orchestrated brilliantly by David Axelrod, who doubled as the   
   mouthpiece of Chicago's supremely cynical political boss, then-   
   Mayor Richard M. Daley.   
      
   Putin already knew that Obama had absolutely no executive   
   experience before taking the most important executive job in the   
   world. And that he charmed his way into the job. America, tired   
   of war and fearful of a collapsing economy, reached for the   
   president from Chicago in the way a drowning man reaches for a   
   chunk of floating wood.   
      
   But the Obama dossier would mention what many here have ignored   
   about the president's formative years: Obama challenged power   
   only once.   
      
   And when he did so, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush branded him as not   
   black enough for the South Side. It was a lesson Obama never   
   forgot.   
      
   >From then on, Obama didn't challenge power. He accommodated it.   
      
   He got down on his knees before it, asking state Senate   
   President Emil Jones to make him a United States senator.   
      
   And so Obama climbed out of Chicago.   
      
   Young, risk-averse people who teach themselves never to   
   challenge power can and do succeed. They can prosper in an   
   America that has reshaped itself as a kind of modern Byzantium.   
      
   They do well in corporate and political life. They punch their   
   tickets. They make their connections. They gather support among   
   like-minded bureaucrats and clerks, as the Byzantines once did.   
      
   They rise. They prosper.   
      
   But they don't grow up to be William Wallace.   
      
   Instead, they become older men who can always find practical   
   reasons for acquiescing.   
      
   That kind of man can turn his back on Poland, after that nation   
   agreed to a U.S.-backed missile defense shield, and feign shock   
   that Russia would see an opening.   
      
   Though Obama was a gentle stalk of asparagus when it came to   
   Chicago's City Hall, he has shown flashes of backbone as   
   president.   
      
   For example, during a tough re-election campaign, he fended off   
   calls by Israel to support a military strike against a nuclear   
   Iran that had threatened to obliterate Israel. His resolve was   
   vastly underrated.   
      
   He's withdrawn our troops from Iraq. He's getting us out of   
   Afghanistan too. And he gave that order to take out Osama bin   
   Laden.   
      
   But it's his desire to avoid confrontation that must whet   
   Putin's appetite.   
      
   Like at the famous 2012 photo-op in Seoul with Putin's acolyte,   
   Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. On a hot microphone, Obama   
   asked Medvedev for time on missile defense issues until he put   
   his own politics in order.   
      
   "This is my last election …." Obama was overheard to say. "After   
   my election I have more flexibility."   
      
   "I will transmit this information to Vladimir," said Medvedev.   
      
   Imagine Putin smirking at Obama being so eager to make friends.   
      
   Later, in a debate with Republican presidential nominee Mitt   
   Romney, Obama attacked Romney for daring to call Russia our   
   leading geopolitical foe.   
      
   "Gov. Romney … the 1980s are now calling to ask for their   
   foreign policy back," Obama said. "Because the Cold War has been   
   over for 20 years."   
      
   It was a snarky bite, like a Twitterverse rendition of   
   complicated and dangerous history.   
      
   President Obama, the '80s aren't alone in calling for their   
   foreign policy back.   
      
   The '60s and '70s are calling now too.   
      
   And your White House phone is ringing.   
      
   Is it really 3 a.m.?   
      
   jskass@tribune.com   
      
   Twitter @John_Kass   
      
   http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-05/news/ct-kass-met-   
   0305-20140305_1_barack-obama-obama-white-house-crimea   
      
       
      
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