Obama in 2013: ‘More Flexibility’

8:34 AM, MAR 26, 2012 • BY WILLIAM KRISTOL

If one needed a reminder of why President Obama must be defeated in November, he provided it today in Seoul, where the end of his private conversation with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev was picked up by microphones as reporters were let into the room:

OBAMA IN CAIRO

President Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space."

President Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…"

President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir."

"More flexibility." That means more accommodation to Vladimir Putin's Russia. It also means, I dare say, greater hostility to Israel, and, in general, a second term foreign policy more in line with Obama's original instincts (e.g., the Cairo speech), once he's free of the domestic political constraints that have brought him, to some degree, toward the center.

Yikes.

If I may presume to echo Cato the Elder: Obama victus est.