Another victory for Obama that will be ignored by the media as such. This is why Republicans can still get elected, even though they are wrong on almost everything. Russia experienced its first shrinking economic period since 2009, mostly due to western sanctions locking out Russian business from international markets and declining oil prices. The ruble is the worst performing currency in the world this year.
But I wonder, where are the same headlines that I saw 12 months ago? I couldn't go a day without seeing a shirtless Putin photo, or an editorial begging for Obama to be "manly" like Putin over the Ukraine. The right wing and its compliant media lapdogs were all over the Sunday shows telling us how weak Obama was, and how we needed stronger reaction to the events in the Ukraine. And this is the problem on almost every issue, now that what Obama did has proven to be exactly right, there will be no calling to the carpet for these folks, they will move onto the next faux story without ever admitting the fools they were, hiding the fact yet again that Democratic leadership, which tends to be thoughtful and reticent to yield fake sabre rattling (at least some of the time) trumps the ridiculous postures the right wing throws at the electorate at each turn.
It is kind of sad that the true steps to victory will be ignored for more than just electoral reasons. Instead of war mongering, the United States took the steps that are enabling it to bring Russia back into international norms, or face further crippling economic calamity. Without pointing this out, how in the future will we best be able to fight the legions of MIC sycophants who think more expensive weapons are our only power, those who use every tension to further line the MIC with our tax dollars for very little benefit compared to cost? Something tells me this is why he will never be given credit on this issue more than anything, anything that takes away from the panhandling of the MIC can not be tolerated or touted.
I'll end with this, recent polls show that we live in a country where the guy who actually was in power when OBL was taken out, who ended 2 unpopular land wars (yes, we still have residual forces, so I'm not going to say the entire process is done), who responded to Russia in the most productive means available without trying to cause a war is somehow behind on foreign policy to the party who was worshipping Putins leadership 12 months back, was in office on 9-11, launched 1 ridiculous and costly preemptive war that turned out to be the costliest mistake in US history, caused the entire worlds economy to tank and continues to tout the same lines of BS that caused all those events! Tell me it is actions like these by our media that does not contribute to this absurdity?