A Quote by Keith Gessen

From the start of his administration, President Barack Obama had tried to lower tensions with Russia and refocus American attention on a rising China; he had made clear he wanted no part in the problems of the post-Soviet periphery.
Ever since Barack Obama had become president, the main policy of the U.S. government toward Russia had been one of appeasement.
The greatest hope most Americans - including Republicans - had when Barack Obama was elected president was that the election of a black person as the country's president would reduce, if not come close to eliminating, the racial tensions that have plagued America for generations.
I believe some of the tensions the U.S. has had with Russia and that the Europeans have had with Russia... China is taking advantage of some of those dealings.
The number of jobs created under President Barack Obama's stimulus turned out to be fewer than the number we would have had if the government had done nothing - according to the Obama administration's own analysis. So we got $9 trillion of debt with almost nothing to pay for it.
Yes, Barack Obama had his clashes with the press. I witnessed those first-hand covering the second term of his administration. But we did not have Barack Obama on almost a weekly basis referring to the press as the enemy of the people and accusing reporters of treason and calling legitimate stories fake news.
We know that Europe loves President Obama. He had adoring crowds. The press loves Obama. The question is how will this date end? Okay? The question is, to what end? Why do they love President Obama? They love his personal story, they love his wife. North Korea, China and Russia don't really care about Michelle's arms and, you know, whether they gave an iPod to the Queen, okay?
The United States had eight years of Barack Obama. He made it incredibly clear that he was a right-wing Democrat. He cited Ronald Reagan lovingly in every stump speech for the last six months of the presidential 2008 campaign. And he made it clear that he was going to be a business-friendly Democratic president, and that he was not going to rock the neoliberal boat. And he didn't.
Barack Obama was not born into wealth or privilege, yet today his is president of these United States of America. Barack Obama has lived the American Dream. He has walked in our shoes.
The president [Barack Obama] himself has said he thought part of his job was to remind the American people that being president and commander in chief is a serious responsibility.
Former vice president Al Gore has devoted his post-administration years to a mission to tell the world about global warming. It's funny, but in his civilian life Gore has discovered the voice that voters had trouble hearing when he ran for president in 2000. The voice he has found is clear, impassioned, and moving.
Barack Obama is the most Jewish president we've ever had (except for Rutherford B. Hayes). No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama.
What [Barack Obama] and I did was to say clearly what we're doing, all the bluster, all of the sanctions, that are just imposed by the American government haven't had much impact.Let's see if we can put together an international coalition to really cripple Iran, and then maybe we can begin a negotiation, and that's what I did. It was difficult. We had to get China and Russia on board, and not just get them on board by signing a piece of paper.
Mitt Romney had it right in 2012 when he told President Barack Obama that Russia was 'without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe.'
George W. Bush tried working with the Russians after 9/11; Obama had the reset. Both presidents achieved less than they wanted, but they both achieved something. Those policies made sense, and it's to the credit of both Presidents Bush and Obama that even as they reached out to Russia, they did not sacrifice core American interests, or core American values. We didn't give the Russians on the altar of better relations other countries. We were able to do two things at once.
I've said this before and I'm very proud of it, that when it comes to judgment, having run a hard race against Senator [Barack] Obama at the time, he turned to me to be secretary of State. And when it comes to the biggest counterterrorism issues that we faced in this administration, namely whether or not to go after bin Laden, I was at that table, I was exercising my judgment to advise the president on what to do, on that, on Iran, on Russia on China, on a whole raft of issues.
A complete investment in the Obama administration required that any real opposition had to be demonized. The investment in Barack Obama had to be protected.
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