President Kick-Me

 

NYPost.com

Vladimir Putin must be crying in his vodka now that President Obama has canceled a one-on-one meeting that had been scheduled during next month’s G-20 gathering in Russia.

 

Not.

 

Granting political asylum to the fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was just the latest in a series of Russian provocations. On issues from Iran and Syria to North Korea and trade, the much-vaunted reset button is stuck.

 

But if the president seriously believes that canceling a meeting will cause Putin to abruptly change course, he’s dreaming. Because Obama has shown no sign that he’s prepared to impose any serious consequences for opposing the US.

It’s not just Russia. China allowed Snowden to fly unimpeded from Hong Kong to Moscow, giving the flimsy excuse that the US had the wrong middle name on its extradition papers. Obama’s response: “We’re disappointed.”

 

Fully 11 months after the Benghazi attack that took the lives of four Americans, including the ambassador, a sealed indictment has been filed. But the perpetrators remain at large. One is out there giving interviews to CNN, not the sign of a man worried Obama’s going to get him.

 

In Syria, Bashar al-Assad long ago crossed the red line Obama publicly set on chemical weapons. But the latest from presidential spokesman Jay Carney: “Further actions are being discussed.” The world becomes a much more dangerous place when leaders calculate they can defy a US president without serious consequence.

 

As a candidate in 2008, Obama suggested his mere election would remake America’s image abroad. Plainly he has done so: You’d have to go back to Jimmy Carter to find an American president less feared by our enemies.