That thought came to my mind shortly after I read this:

At the tail end of his 90 minute meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Monday, President Obama said that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with controversial issues such as missile defense, but incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to give him “space.”

It is good to see the legacy media give this story as much coverage as they have as it shows Obama for the showman that he is, masquerading as a moderate, yet governing in an entirely different direction on foreign as well as domestic policy.

I do hope that on January 20, 2013, Obama gets the flexibility he longs for, the flexibility ex-presidents enjoy.

More often that not, our friends in the legacy media are hesitant to report/investigate the president’s “gaffes” in front on open mikes as law professor William A. Jacobson reminds us of those the legacy “media won’t release, like CBS refusing to release the full audio of Obama’s comments about Paul Ryan, and the LA Times holding back the Khalidi tape.”

John McCain minces no words in taking the president to task for his remarks to Mr. Medvedev.

A couple of thoughts (which I’ll try to flesh out if I get a moment, but may not as one of my nephews and a cousin are visiting LA right now).  First, a question:  what does it say about Obama that he’s oblivious to the fact that his candid remarks could be picked up on an open mike (did he really think the media would cover for him?).  And a thought:  striking the leader of a democratic republic would tell the leader of a nation which has banned a number of political parties that he can act differently once he no longer needs concern himself with making his case to the people he supposedly serves.

UPDATE:  ”One message to the voters at home,” quips Jim Geraghty, “an entirely different message to leaders abroad… from a president who declared in 2008 that his true rival in the presidential race was cynicism itself.”

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Benjamin in WeHo offers some insightful quips:

1. When a Russian politician admits to deceiving voters to win an election, it’s “managing democracy.” In the USA, it’s accidentally speaking into a live microphone.

2. Contrast Reagan walking out on Gorbachev over missile defense to Obama lying to American voters about it.

Read the rest.

UP-UPDATE:   Over at the National Review, Peter Kirsanow offers:

What, precisely, are “all these issues” (besides missile defense) that President Obama plans to solve in his second term? Why has he shared them with the Russian president but not the American people?

Why the reference to his “last election?” Would he not be able to do what he wants if he had to stand for reelection?

Emphasis added.

Just caught Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech tonight to AIPAC.  It was a powerful address when he reminded his listeners that Israel was the only nation in the Middle East where minorities, including Arabs, have civil rights.

When he defined the tyranny that reigns in Iran, he pointed out that Iran hangs gays.  We must always remember that gay men and lesbians can live openly, live freely in nations like Israel, but in such places like Iran, their freedom is not existent and their lives could readily become forfeit to a radical regime.

Earlier today, Bruce reported that one of the truly great liberators, a voice of  moral clarity on a confused continent, passed.

Just moments ago, on Facebook, Glenn Reynolds reported that on the other side of the Eurasian landmass, a man who was very much the opposite of Vaclev Havel met his reward:  ”Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s mercurial and enigmatic leader, has died.”

Havel was one of the first leaders of a nation that has long languished under communism.  Kim is a leader of one of the last nations still beholden to the communist ideology.  For the sake of the people on the northern half of the Korean peninsula, let us hope the regime he headed will suffer the fate of the regime Havel helped bring down.

Remember back in the early years of this century how many on the left — and in the Democratic Party– faulted then-President George W. Bush for going it alone on foreign policy. Despite the fact that this good man had developed strong relationships with the leaders of a great variety of nations, including the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain (until 2004), Australia, Poland and Denmark to name but a few, his critics all focused on the opposition generated by the then-President of France.

That man, a Monsieur J. Chirac famously rebuked European nations working with Bush on liberating Iraq for losing a “good opportunity to keep quiet”.  The problem was not that Bush did not forge strong relationships with our allies, but that Chirac (and members of his government) actively sought to frustrate them.

Seems like the Frenchman has gotten his comeuppance. According to Glenn Reynolds, the immediate past president of the Fifth Republic has been

CONVICTED OF CORRUPTION CHARGES. “Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, is the first former French head of state to be convicted since Marshal Philippe Petain, the leader of the wartime Vichy regime, was found guilty in 1945 of collaborating with the Nazis.”

George W Bush could not be reached for comment.

Even the Huffington Post is taking note of the failures of Obama’s foreign policy:

Russia threatened on Wednesday to deploy missiles to target the U.S. missile shield in Europe if Washington fails to assuage Moscow’s concerns about its plans, a harsh warning that reflected deep cracks in U.S.-Russian ties despite President Barack Obama’s efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin.

Seems the more we watch this president and his team stumble, the greater appreciation we have for his predecessor and his team.  It looks like the challenges we faced abroad were not so much due to that man’s alleged incompetence, but instead to the particular nature of those very challenges, the complex situations and the particular players.

We face, as one blogger noted, a world of trouble out there, problems that a purportedly tongued-tied Republican did not create, problems that a supposedly smart silver-tongued Democrat cannot fix.

No wonder our media are so eager to downplay the Spanish election:

Voters vented their rage on the Socialists, who led the country from boom to bust in seven years in charge. With 5 million people out of work, the European Union’s highest jobless rate, Spain is heading into its second recession in four years.

. . . .

The PP won the biggest majority for any party in three decades, taking 186 seats in the 350-seat lower house, according to official results with 98 percent of the vote counted.

Emphasis added.  Boom to bust seems to be the story of what happens when governments increase their meddling in the economy.

Seems Instapundit is a better source for news than either AOL or Yahoo!  Glenn reports that “SPAIN’S SOCIALISTS lose in a landslide. Spanish voters, tired of war, got rid of Aznar and brought in people promising hope and change. Now they’re broke, and the Socialists are out.”

Now, this seems to be pretty big news.  A major European industrial nation where the Socialists won big back in ’04, seen then by some as harbinger of George W. Bush’s coming fall, especially as it followed on the heels of terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital.

Caught that news after having scanned the home pages of AOL and Yahoo!  Went back to double check as that is something I would have caught.  And wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t miss anything. It was they who missed the story.  Guess it doesn’t fit the narrative:

AOL:

Didn’t even make their rotating headlines.

Yahoo!: (more…)

“The most underreported story in the Middle East“, writes Jennifer Rubin

. . . is the suffering inflicted on Christians in Arab lands. “So while Christians are thriving in Israel they are under intense pressure in many neighboring Muslim countries. Europeans, and American enemies of Israel like the famous professors Walt and Mearsheimer, most often attribute American support for Israel to the ‘Jewish lobby.’ But American Christians know more about the Middle East than these supposedly sophisticated critics, and are aware of the fate of their coreligionists. They see Christianity free to grow in Israel, and faced with violence and suppression nearby. They see Christians free to worship in Israel but fleeing all too many Arab lands. There’s no need for complicated political science analyses here, much less bigotry: those seeking to understand why American Christians overwhelmingly support Israel should study the treatment and the fate of Christianity in the Middle East.”

Wonder when all those concerned for the victims of what they deem Israeli apartheid will stand up for the Christians suffering under tyrannical non-Jewish regimes.

Gay candidate leads race to be Irish president: poll.

Cool though it is, the poll is of a multi-candidate field so he doesn’t (yet?) command the support of a majority of Irish voters:

A gay Irish senator is the favourite to become Ireland’s next president, while former IRA commander Martin McGuinness is in third place, an opinion poll said Saturday.

Senator David Norris had the backing of 21 percent of those surveyed in a Red C/Sunday Business Post poll ahead of the October 27 election to succeed President Mary McAleese.

If he does win, I believe he would be the first openly gay head of state in the modern era.

On Yahoo!’s home page, there are currently four headlines referencing the matter:

Once again, the AP shows that it would rather spin the news in Israel than report it straight. After terrorists from Gaza slipped first into Egypt, then into Israel, murdering innocent civilians on an isolated road, Israel, as would any nation whose sovereign territory had been invaded by armed men seeking its destruction, retaliated.

Now, terrorists from Gaza fire rockets and mortars toward civilian population centers in sovereign Israeli territory. This is how the AP “reports” it:

A new cycle of violence began Thursday with militants ambushing Israeli vehicles near the southern border with Egypt, killing eight people.

Once again, it’s a “cycle of violence.” Here’s how a more responsible journalist would have reported it:

Terrorists from Gaza slipped into Egypt and from there into Israel territory attacking a bus filled with civilians. In response to this violation of its border, Israel pursued the attackers, seeking to protect its citizens from further violence.

Militants, possibly allied with the Hamas government in Gaza, continue to fire rockets and mortars at civilian targets inside Israel.

The word, “civilian,” was not found in the AP article cited in this post.

As the people in the Republic of South Sudan celebrate their newly-won independence, they’re thanking the immediate past President of the United States:

Christian groups had been championing the southern Sudanese since the 19th century. And their efforts paid off in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. He elevated Sudan to near the top of his foreign policy agenda, and in 2005, the American government pushed the southern rebels and the central government — both war weary and locked in a military stalemate — to sign a comprehensive peace agreement that guaranteed the southerners the right to secede.

On Saturday, one man held up a sign that said “Thank You George Bush.”

As the new nation’s independence became official, its “president, Salva Kiir, wearing his signature black cowboy hat given to him by Mr. Bush, signed the interim Constitution.”

Nice to see the New York Times acknowledging another foreign policy triumph of Mr. Bush.

Honoring this great man ” for his role in helping to end communism”, the former Communist nation of Hungary “unveiled a statue of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan on Wednesday“:

Hundreds took part in the unveiling in Budapest’s Szabadsag, or Freedom, square, including Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Reagan was remembered for his role in “bringing the Cold War to a conclusion, and for the fact that Hungary regained its sovereignty in the process,” the Hungarian government said in a statement.

How fitting that the statue will stand in Freedom Square. The Gipper would have loved that.

“US Air Force and Army officers, serving in Hungary, pose with the new statue of late US President Ronald Reagan after a centennial commemoration in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, June 29, 2011. The 180 kilograms (400 pounds) and 2.18 meter (7 feet, 2 inches) tall bronze statue honors Reagan at the Freedom Square in central Budapest, to mark his efforts to free the people of Hungary from the yoke of communism.”

AP Image via Gateway Pundit.

I believe that statue is life-size, given that the Gipper was larger than life.

UPDATE:   A reader from across the pond alerts us to how folks on the island that gave us Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Margaret Thatcher are honoring that great lady’s great friend:

Margaret Thatcher is “determined” to attend the grand unveiling of a statue of Ronald Reagan in Londonon July 4 despite having been too unwell to make the royal wedding . . . .

The 10-foot bronze will stand opposite a statue of Second World War commander Dwight D Eisenhower, which was unveiled by Lady Thatcher in 1989. A quotation from the ex-premier has been chosen for thePortland stone plinth of the Reagan statue. It reads: “Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.”

There’s more here including a picture of the life-size statue.

Hillary: State Dept. ‘Instrumental in Sealing Deal’ For Lady Gaga’s Gay Pride Gig in Rome

I mean, with all the problems in the Middle East and all, not to mention a couple of wars and various kinetic actions, you do have to have your priorities.

Via reader Peter from Houston.

Reading Glenn’s report of efforts to stop the Gaza Flotilla, I started wondering if those do-gooders eager to help those suffering under the Islamicist tyranny in Gaza had organized such aquatic caravans to provide relief to those suffering under similar regimes in Syria, Iran and Libya or in such impoverished places like Somalia.

Tried to watch it, but found it, well, kind of dull.  His delivery seemed amazingly staccato, as if his heart weren’t in the address.

And did I hear him using Iraq as an example of what an Arab society could become if it did the right thing?  Wonder if he cited his predecessor for helping Iraq make the progress that it has.

When last we heard from the worst president of the twentieth century, Jimmy Carter was accusing the nation he once led of human rights violations:

Carter also used his trip to North Korea to observe the country’s food rationing system. That the United States and South Korea have chosen “to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people because of political or military issues not related is really indeed a human rights violation,” he said.

Carter had traveled to North Korea to meet with Communist Party leader Kim Jong-il, but that meeting did not take place as he had hoped.  Instead, he met with regime functionaries and came back to the West convinced of their good will.

Guess Jimmy wasn’t aware that the regime has a practice of siphoning off Western food aid to “to support Kim’s military forces.“ Commenting on the Democrat’s visit to North Korea, the editors of the Wall Street Journal mince no wordst:

So let’s see. Kim Jong Il runs a dungeon of a nation whose policies cause repeated famines, but the U.S. and South Korea are morally obliged to alleviate the consequences of those policies even if this means helping the dungeon masters maintain control so they can cause more famines.

Wouldn’t it make more moral sense to try to depose the dungeon masters, or at least speak out against them? But Mr. Carter says he can’t do anything about the North Koreans, so he denounces his own country in sharper language than he dares to use against a regime that murders and imprisons its own people.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported something that a champion of human rights would clearly denounce: “North Korea’s work farms and prison factories” considered by “human rights experts” to “the world’s most notorious” are “massive and growing”:

New satellite images and firsthand accounts from former political prisoners and former jailers in North Korea have confirmed the enormous scale and bleak conditions of the penal system in the secretive North, according to a report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International. (more…)

In the wake of his smashing victory Sunday,

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday the energy sector can rest easy that his government will not impede plans to vastly expand the country’s oil sands output and ship some of the crude to Asia.

Harper, in his Western Canadian home base of Calgary on the morning after his Conservatives won big in the federal election, singled out the Western-based oil industry as being a beneficiary of his party’s pro-business agenda, which will also include corporate tax cuts and deficit reduction. Investors greeted the result with relief.

(Via Sondra K via V the K.)  Do hope President Obama is paying attention and intends to follow the lead of our neighbor to the North.  If he moves to unfetter oil exploration, instead of spiking, oil prices might start to decrease.

Mark Tapscott explains why “Oil prices suddenly plummeted from their historic high of $145 a barrel” on July 14, 2008:

Because that was the day President George W. Bush signed an executive order lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling in the eastern half of the Gulf of Mexico and off the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Overnight, the price per barrel of oil plunged, and that plunge was reflected at the pump soon thereafter.

In other words, Obama could with the stroke of a pen sign an executive order telling his appointees at EPA, the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy to stop throwing up obstacles to increased U.S. oil and natural gas production and instead work with the energy industry on a crash program to “drill here, drill now.”

Seems the Canadian Prime Minister is more aware of what happened when the immediate past American president moved to allow more oil exploration than is the incumbent.

Just over five years ago, when Canadian voters ousted the anti-Bush government of Paul Martin, Tory Stephen Harper was able to form a minority government in the Great White North.  His conservative party won again at the hustings in October 2008, but he still led a minority government.  At the time of his first election, Mer, one of our readers, corrected my misunderstanding of how governments in Canada are formed and offered,  ”So we’ll see what this means. Watershed or blip? Let’s check back in a few years.”

For the past five years, Harper has been able to form a government without having formed a majority in parliament.

Results from yesterday’s election suggests that Harper’s 2006 victory was not a blip.  Voters finally gave Harper a majority, with his Tories winning 167 of the 308 seats in the Canadian House of Commons:  ”Canadian voters have delivered Conservative Leader Stephen Harper his first majority government after five years of governing in a minority situation, with the 41st election bringing a dramatic and unpredicted realignment to the country’s political landscape.”

(Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE:  Michael Barone breaks down the results and offers some thoughts on their meaning.

Noting the prominent position anarchists played in the recent London riots, Glenn Reynolds asks a question which crossed my mind as well:

But if you’re protesting against government budget cuts, can you really call yourself an anarchist?