Heh: Russian Pols Claim Spy Arrests are Right-Wing Plot to Embarrass Obama

As if the "right-wingers" in this country could conspire to meet privately for lunch, let alone clandestinely operate a spy trap for over a decade knowing that years later they could use the arrests to make an inept president look even weaker than he already is.

And here we thought such delusions were only left to liberal Democrats.

So it was that the most rabid anti-American Kremlin stooges on state TV were muzzled and state TV portrayed President Medvedev’s trip to the United States last week as a sign that Russia is once again, if not exactly an equal partner, a great power whose opinion matters. Backed by generally high oil prices, the third largest international reserves in the world, and an economy that appears to be coming out of the global recession faster than Western rivals, the Kremlin is once again feeling confident.

Yet the spy row has left it in a bind. President Medvedev has invested too much political capital and too much propaganda in better relations with the United States to suddenly perform a U-turn now. The only way is forward. Russian politicians are therefore already punting a convenient conspiracy theory. The spies are not spies and the “plot” was announced just after President Medvedev’s trip to the US by American Right-wingers intent on embarrassing President Obama and killing of better relations between the two countries.

It is a theory that allows the Russians to publicly save face: it is not our new friends that have stabbed us in the back but the enemies of our new friends. Yet the real victim of the dispute may not be Mr Obama but Mr Medvedev or, more accurately, the policy vector he represents. He is the one who has publicly gambled on embracing the West, while Vladimir Putin, the prime minister and former president, has kept notably quiet on the subject and is known for his tough anti-Western rhetoric.

It shouldn't be long until some in our own media run with this theory. I figure the crack staff at MSNBC is feverishly pursuing this insane line of logic.

Putie, meanwhile, claims Russia is the real victim.

Russia is the real victim of the spy scandal, Moscow angrily said yesterday -- while the Obama administration acted embarrassed at carrying off the biggest counterespionage coup in years.

Kremlin officials acknowledged that at least 10 of the 11 suspects caught in the US spy dragnet were Russian citizens. But in a bizarre role reversal, they said this showed America was acting irresponsibly.

"Back at your home, the police went out of control," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a visiting Bill Clinton in Moscow. "Throwing people in jail."

Clinton appeared to chuckle but made no comment.

Other Kremlin leaders demanded an explanation for reviving what the Foreign Ministry labeled "Cold War-era spy stories" and making "groundless" accusations.

In contrast, President Obama dodged the issue.

While talking to reporters about the economy, Obama was asked about the arrests. "Thank you," he replied. He declined comment when asked a second time.

Speaking of Clinton, it appears an ally of his wife was a target of one of the alleged spies.

A close political ally of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes he was the target of one of the ten alleged Russian spies arrested in the U.S.

Alan Patricof, the former finance chairman of Clinton’s Senate campaign, confirmed that the woman known as Cynthia Murphy had worked on his account at a New York finance firm.

According to the FBI complaint filed in New York on the arrests, which were the result of a ten-year investigation, Murphy had been told to get close to a New York-based financier described as a fundraiser “for a major political party” who is “a personal friend” of a Cabinet member.

Seems the one spy receiving much of the attention isn't exactly the brightest bulb.

Those who knew Chapman from the social and club scenes described her as "sweet," "flirtatious" and "friendly" -- sometimes too friendly.

At parties, she "would be very flirtatious," said one moneyman, who encountered her at a couple of Wall Street cocktail soirees. "She was very sexually aggressive [and] wore revealing clothing . . . I thought she was a call girl because she dressed that way," said the man, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity.

She also had problems keeping her cover stories straight.

"She made up a different story every time," he said.

"The first time, she said she ran a real-estate Web site. Then the next time, she was working on an oil deal."

"[Then] she told me she was a derivatives trader. I asked her one thing any derivatives trader would know and she didn't know what I was talking about," he said. "She was just dumb, quite frankly."

That, of course, may well be an act by the woman whose real name is Kuschenko.

If it is proven she is a spy, Chapman is one of a new breed of young attractive female agents trained in the era of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, himself a former Soviet agent, for a new age of espionage to undermine the West.

Documents in Russia reveal that Chapman’s real surname is Kuschenko. She was born in Ukraine and raised in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, southern Russia. As a teenager she studied at the Economics Department of the University of People’s Friendship in Moscow – an institution with long-standing links to the old feared KGB.

But this could all be a decoy by Russian intelligence to mask her real identity. She is widely travelled, fun-loving and a fashionably dressed Russian entrepreneur who sends her photographs to friends about her glittering, cosmopolitan lifestyle in New York, London and Moscow.

Her CV also suggests she is involved in a dizzying array of businesses, including interests in London up to 2006. In the UK she is listed as the marketing manager of a company called Navigator and also worked in the City as an investment banker. In the US she runs an online real estate business.

It was also reported last night that it was in London that she acquired her English surname after she married an Englishman and moved with him to America. But it is unclear when she married. An online friend said: “Anna loves to exchange experiences with successful entrepreneurs around the world.”

Looking at her it's easy to see how she could lure the men in.

Burger Diplomacy

Barack Obama must hate the crap his wife has him eat at the White House. No wonder he's constantly fleeing for sporting events and making burger runs.

So what is it with Ray’s Hell Burger? Could it be winning the White House Burger Battle?

Let’s ask the president of Russia. We know President Obama is a fan.

On a sweltering summer day in Washington on Thursday, President Obama passed on lunch from White House chefs to take his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, across the Potomac to Ray’s, a hamburger establishment in Arlington, Va.

Mr. Obama might almost qualify as a Ray’s regular: he and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. went there on a surprise lunch run last year.

Mr. Obama had a cheddar cheeseburger with onions, lettuce, tomato, and bread-and-butter pickles, and a bottle of iced tea to wash it down. Mr. Medvedev also ordered the cheddar burger, but he added jalapenos, onions and mushrooms, and paired it with a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Translators stayed close at hand to keep the conversation going as the two world leaders sat down to eat in shirt sleeves (Mr. Obama even unbuttoned his cuffs). They all walked out afterward to cheers from the other patrons.

Oooh, Obama even unbuttoned his cuffs!

Swoon!

Did Obama also have dijon mustard on this trip or did he settle for the French's we see on the table?

Too Funny: White House Release Misspells Obama's Name

We've really got the best and brightest running the show.

Oops.

In a release touting an agreement between Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev over how to craft a follow-up to the START arms reduction treaty, the White House claimed the document had been signed by one "Barak Obama."

The worst part is this was a hastily arranged release because it appears the Kremlin was more transparent in their release of the Joint Understanding reached the other day.

Not only are these people incompetent, they're dangerously incompetent.

Guess who’s hiding the (strategic) ball? If you guessed the administration that pledged it would be the most transparent in American history, you win!

On Monday, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a “Joint Understanding” on the parameters for a follow-on to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires this December. The White House press release on the joint understanding highlighted the mutual agreement to cut strategic warheads from current levels to a range of 1500-1675 and strategic delivery vehicles to somewhere between 500-1100. What the White House did not release was the actual text of the “Joint Understanding.”

But thank God the Kremlin does not seem to be as reluctant to publish the actual text. And with good reason. Points 5 and 6 of the “Joint Understanding” commit the U.S. to negotiate provisions “on the interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms” and “on the impact on strategic stability of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles in a non-nuclear configuration.” Through this back door, Moscow has once again tied Washington into linking missile defenses with strategic arms control and, equally problematic, gotten the Obama administration to negotiate about one of the most promising conventional capabilities the US military will be able to field in the future: highly-accurate, non-nuclear, long-range strike weapons.

Read on, it gets worse.

More here.

King Obama Wants to Bypass Senate Ratification of U.S.-Russia Arms Treaty

Yeah, why bother with pesky little things like the Constitution? You're King Obama, you can do as you please.

I guess the Senate is too busy helping you wreck our economy to be bother with such trivial matters as arms treaties with one of our enemies.

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

"The most ideal situation would be to finish it in time that it could be submitted to the Senate so that it can be ratified," said White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control Gary Samore. "If we're not able to do that, we'll have to look at arrangements to continue some of the inspection provisions, keep them enforced in a provisional basis, while the Senate considers the treaty."

Samore said administration lawyers are exploring the "different options that are available. One option is that both sides could agree to continue the inspections by executive agreement; that would work on our side. On the Russian side, as I understand it, that would require Duma approval."

The fact that the administration is preparing for such an extraordinary measure shows just how much pressure the two administrations are under to arrive at an agreement before the 18-year-old treaty expires. While resident Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are expected to announce progress tomorrow on a nuclear arms reduction treaty – nicknamed “New START” -- to take effect in just five short months, many sticking points that remain unresolved.

The Senate is able to write legislation in the middle of the night and vote on it without anyone reading it. Apparently, however, they can't work on this given five months notice.

So let's just ignore the Constitution!

Change!

Medvedev Hails 'Comrade Obama'

The Russians sure know when they've got a patsy on their hands.

Russia's Dmitry Medvedev hailed Barack Obama as "my new comrade" Thursday after their first face-to-face talks, saying the US president "can listen" -- even if little progress was made on substance.

The Russian president contrasted Obama as "totally different" to his predecessor George W. Bush, whom he blamed for the "mistake" of US missile shield plans fiercely opposed by Moscow.

Obama agreed to visit Moscow in July after his talks with Medvedev on Wednesday on the sidelines of a G20 summit in London aimed at fixing the battered world economy.

"I believe that we managed to establish contact. But Moscow lies ahead. I cannot say that we made much progress on the most serious issues," he told reporters, adding: "Let's wait and see."

"I liked the talks. It is easy to talk to him. He can listen. The start of this relationship is good," he said, adding: "Today it's a totally different situation (compared to Bush)... This suits me quite well."

We're in deep trouble, folks.

"Yesterday I spoke about this with my new comrade President Barack Obama," Medvedev told reporters travelling with him to the London summit.

They also discussed US plans for a missile defence shield, based in former communist-bloc countries which are now members of NATO and the European Union, like the Czech Republic.

Our former comrades in Eastern Europe must be thrilled to read this.

Humiliation: Russia Rejects Obama's Missile Shield Pandering, Smashes Him With Clenched Fist

The President-in-Training gets another clenched fist upside the head.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Tuesday showed willingness to discuss the US-planned missile defence system opposed by Moscow, but without "haggling" linking it to Iran. Medvedev was commenting during a visit to Spain on an alleged offer by US President Barack Obama to halt the defence system if Iran could be convinced to give up nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

The New York Times earlier reported that Obama had sent a secret letter to Medvedev.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Madrid, Medvedev welcomed the "positive signals" coming from the Obama administration with which he hoped to reach "agreements."

"Haggling," however, was not "productive," Medvedev said.

If the Obama administration showed "common sense" in proposing a "common shield against all types of threats" and reconsidered its plans of a missile defence system which could target Russia, Moscow would be prepared to negotiate, Medvedev said.

The New York Times reported earlier on its website that Obama last month offered a halt to the US-planned missile defence system opposed by Moscow if Iran could be convinced to relinquish nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

So let's review the checklist. Obama throws Eastern Europe under the bus, Russia laughs at him and Iran will still have their nukes.

Maybe if Obama can locate a spine we can still proceed with the missile defense, but who in Eastern Europe would even trust this lightweight at this point? The guy is a laughingstock.

Putie Puppet on Saakashvili: 'He Is a Political Corpse'

The Russians are just begging for a smackdown.

Get this from Vlad's poodle Dmitriy Medvedev.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev no longer considers his counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili to be Georgia's leader, telling Russian television Tuesday that Saakashvili is a "political corpse."

"For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," Medvedev said.

Just as Russia is an orphan of the political corpse known as the Soviet Union.

Laugh of the Day: New Russian President Stresses Freedom

Reuters shamelessly shills for the "new" leadership in Russia, trumpeting freedom.

Yeah, right.

Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as Russian president on Wednesday and just over two hours later nominated his predecessor Vladimir Putin as prime minister, ushering in an unprecedented period of dual rule.

Medvedev, a 42-year-old former corporate lawyer and longtime Putin ally, stressed freedom and the rule of law in his first remarks after taking the oath of office in a solemn, emotional ceremony in the Kremlin's glittering St Andrew's Hall.

So the upshot is Medvedev has installed former KGB leader Putin as his Prime Minister, who hand-picked Medvedev for this job. Anybody out there really believe that Putin (did I mention he is former KGB?) is not still running things?

Me neither.

So what does Putin have to say about all this?

Before Medvedev was sworn in, a somber-looking Putin entered the Kremlin alone, bid farewell to the presidential guard and thanked the Russian people for their trust over his two four-year terms.

Barred by term limits from standing again, he encouraged his audience to support Medvedev but told them not to deviate from his policies.

"It is very important for everyone to continue the course we have started already and which has proved right," he said.

Translation: Do exactly what I tell you or else!

My guess is that the first time Medvedev actually shows any inclination to make his own decisions he will be overcome by an urge to shoot himself in the back of the head a couple of times.

Democracy At Work

When discussing the G8 and the Soviet Union today's Russia during an interview six months ago, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves offered that, ...if you're not a member of the G8, it's not difficult to call for anyone to be thrown out. But I certainly wouldn't call it the organization of industrialized democracies anymore.

Interviewer: What would you call it?

President Ilves: Seven industrial democracies and one country brought in for reasons that have lost their relevance.

Putin to be PM in future Russia government
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was ready to become prime minister if his close ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep a grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin.

A 42-year-old lawyer with no political base of his own, Medvedev is virtually certain to win next March's presidential election since most Russians will vote for whoever the highly popular Putin endorses.

"If Russian citizens express their confidence in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him as the country's president, I will be ready to head the government," Putin told a congress of his United Russia party held near Moscow's Red Square.

"(We) shouldn't be ashamed or afraid of transferring the key powers of the country, the destiny of Russia to the hands of such a man," Putin added in his speech.

You'll get no argument from the Koslings, Putie. They know democracy when they see it.

Medvedev, 42, was later adopted by the congress as United Russia's presidential candidate. Delegates voted 478-1 in a sober, Soviet-style ceremony held without debate.

Is there any other way???

In his brief acceptance speech, Medvedev listed priorities such as strengthening Russia's position in the world, preserving the Russian nation, looking after the young and the old.

"All this is in Vladimir Putin's strategy. I will be guided by this strategy, if I am elected president," Medvedev said.

"But carrying out an idea can only be successful with the participation of its author. I have no doubt that in the future Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) will use all his resources, all his influence in Russia and abroad for the benefit of Russia."

[....]

Putin praised Medvedev as a man whose "main principles in life are the interests of its government and its citizens."

And pleasing his master.

He also announced a big pay rise of 14 percent for public sector workers, which will come into effect on February 1, just over a month before the election. The military will get 18 percent.

Of course, the pay increases have nothing to do with buying loyalty and votes for Putie's weak sister.

In a further sign of Putin's intention to keep a grip on power next year, Russian media reported that Putin could send the Kremlin chief of staff to run Medvedev's election campaign.

[....]

Read it all at Reuters

Too busy shilling for the Palis, the administration's 'Russian expert' was unavailable for comment.

Also at A Tangled Web


UPDATE: Although speculation about Putie's future began last June, Vladimir Paranoid's announcement about becoming prime minister after Medvedev's 'elected' in March, experts were surprised.

Experts, schmexperts.