U.S. Senator John McCain will submit an opinion piece to the Russian newspaper Pravda in response to an op-ed on Syria in The New York Times by Russian President Vladimir Putin that infuriated many members of Congress. Oh really? Many members of Congress? How many Americans did it infuriate?

For McCain to respond in kind? I say Hell No! If our own President hasn’t the balls to respond to Putin’s belittling, watching anyone else speak for him will only reinforce his misguided point. And Obama hasn’t enough pride in our country or confidence in his own beliefs to respond in a way the situation demands. Make that Putin 2, Obama 0.

Obama is incapable of responding because he, like Putin, does not understand what American exceptionalism is. Well, I really can’t speak for Putin on this point. He might understand what it is, and merely chose the occasion to play on Obama’s ignorance to rub his face in it on the pages of the New York Times. Obama proved a few years ago that he hasn’t a clue what American exceptionalism is. When asked by a foreign journalist if he believed in American exceptionalism he responded, no more than the Brits think they are exceptional, and the Swiss think they’re exceptional, and the French, you get the idea.

Since this is not taught in schools any more, here’s the Cliff Notes version. American exceptionalism is NOT that we are a better or smarter people compared to the rest of the world. On that account we are all equal. That’s Obama’s definition, and Putin hit him between the eyes with it.

America’s exceptionalism began with our founding fathers and the founding of our country. All the countries in the world at the time of our founding and before were run by dictators, despots, and governments that ruled over their people, who were merely subjects of the government. There were no basic human and private property rights, freedom, or liberties that were guaranteed by the government. The government gave the people only what the government wanted the people to have. EXCEPT for the United States of America. We were the first country to form a government by the people and for the people, with inalienable rights given by God, not by the government. The people formed the government and gave it only the power over them that they choose it to have. Not the other way around. Our founders wrote a constitution and a bill of rights that served as the ‘governor’ to governmental power over the people, limiting its power. Obama calls that a “charter of negative liberties,” just to illustrate his contempt for our founding.The people control the government by a constitutional republic form of government. We are not subjects of the government. We are, essentially, the government. That idea was very radical for its time.

Our founding fathers knew what it was like to live under a tyrannical government and ruler under King George III. They were wise to craft a form of government that would guarantee, with all due diligence, that the United States would not turn into just another kingdom under a crown.

The result was, America became the EXCEPTION to the world order. The result was a free people, free to own the fruits of their labor, unrestrained by an oppressive government, that became the superpower of the world, by any measure, in less than 200 years of its founding.  When compared to nation states that are several hundred, even thousands, of years older, it’s not difficult to see what American exceptionalism is.

Neither you or I can stop Sen. McCain from writing PRAVDA or ITAR-TASS. He has that right. What they need to see is some good old fashion American exceptionalism by writing your own letter to their editor. They’ll get the idea real quick what American exceptionalism is. And it isn’t Barack Obama.

Link: McCain to parry Putin N.Y. Times op-ed with one for Pravda – Yahoo News.

What Russian media is talking about:

• The leader of the free world: Obama or Putin?
• Barack Obama: The worst President in the history of the USA

Russian President Vladimir Putin has his version of freedom. And it doesn’t include a female rock band singing songs protesting Putin’s Russia. The band, named Pussy Riot,  is Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was arrested in March after performing a “punk prayer” in Christ the Savior Cathedral, dancing and high-kicking as they called on the Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin, who was elected to a third term as Russia’s president two weeks later.

And today the women were sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism.”

Link: Activists get 2 years for anti-Putin church stunt

Turns out, not surprisingly, the problem with the START treaty as voiced by most Republicans and people who can read was confirmed by none other than the Russian DUMA. This presents a problem for President Obama, who championed the passage of the treaty in the Senate last month and insisted that the linking of defensive missile systems to offensive missile systems was not in the legal and binding part of the treaty.

Russia was not fooled. Instead, it appears that the President has made the U.S. look like the fool for his dancing around the issue like he did. The Russian DUMA insistes that limits on US missile defense capabilities are a central element to the treaty.

The State Duma plans to confirm the link between the reduction of the strategic offensive arms and the restriction of antimissile defense systems’ deployment in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed between the US and Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs says.

“During the ratification of START in the US Congress the American lawmakers noted that the link between strategic offensive armed forces and antimissile defense systems is not juridically binding for the parties. They referred to the fact that this link was fixed only in the preamble of the document. Such an approach can be regarded as the US’ attempt to find an option to build up its strategic potential and the Russian lawmakers cannot agree with this,” Kosachev says.

We will deal with these interpretations. The first thing is that our American colleagues do not recognize the legal force of the treaty’s preamble. The preamble sets a link between strategic offensive arms and defensive arms. The second thing is an attempt to interpret certain provisions of the treaty unilaterally.

The Russian lawmakers insist that all the chapters of the treaty including the preamble are legally binding, which is a common norm of international law. It is not lawful to take certain provisions and to give them unilateral interpretations like the American senators do, Alexei Arbatov, a member of the Carnegie Scientific Council, says.

There is a plausable explanation as to why President Obama treats the preamble to the START treaty the way he does. It is for the same reason he doesn’t much like our own Constitution. The document he refers to as ‘a charter of negative liberties.’ To most people, including the new majority party, the Preamble to the United States Constitution is a statement of the Constitution’s fundamental purposes and guiding principles.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Dittos for the preamble to the START treaty. It sets the ‘purpose and guiding principles’ for nuclear arms control. In the last two years, we have witnessed all kinds of extra-constitutional legislation and actions taken by President Obama and his then majority party. Well, with one exception. They have taken one part of the Preamble, ‘promote the general Welfare,’ to use as a blank check for their redistribution of wealth ideas. The rest of it is only relevant when they want it to be.

In the final analysis, like other major legislation on his plate, the President put his priority on passing legislation for the sake of passing it, regardless of its effects. The desperation of a failing community organizer manifested itself in the emergency, ‘the sky is falling,’ need to pass START  so he could boast about how he made the world safer. Meanwhile, Russia and the world are laughing at us. And him.

Link: Surprise: Russian Duma To Codify Missile Defense Language in New START