Obama says he’s not ‘hiding the ball’ on Russia

BEN FELLER

AP White House Correspondent

SEOUL, South Korea — Speak­ing to the micro­phones inten­tion­ally this time, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama on Tues­day assured he had no hid­den agenda with Rus­sia for a sec­ond term, seek­ing to con­tain a con­tro­ver­sial gaffe that bounded all the way to the cam­paign trail at home and back again.

Obama got caught on tape Mon­day telling Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more room to nego­ti­ate on mis­sile defense after get­ting through a Novem­ber elec­tion, pre­sum­ably expect­ing to win and not have to face vot­ers again.

Obama’s Repub­li­can rivals back home pounced, accus­ing him of secre­tive plot­ting and deal­ing over Amer­i­can national secu­rity. So one day later, with Medvedev at his side again, Obama tried some on-the-record can­dor and humor to put it all to rest.

The president’s expla­na­tion: He wants to work with Rus­sia on the deeply divi­sive issue of a mis­sile defense shield in Europe, know­ing only by build­ing trust first on that mat­ter can he make gains on another goal of nuclear arms reduc­tions. And there’s no way to expect progress dur­ing the pol­i­tics of this elec­tion year, so he is already look­ing to 2013.

“This is not a mat­ter of hid­ing the ball,” Obama said, well aware of crit­i­cism erupt­ing at home. “I’m on record.”

Still, Obama had not meant for his ini­tial polit­i­cal assess­ment to be heard. It was picked up by live micro­phones dur­ing a meet­ing with Medvedev and soon shot around the world. “This is my last elec­tion,” Obama was heard telling Medvedev, Russia’s out­go­ing pres­i­dent. “After my elec­tion, I have more flexibility.”

Obama showed up at a nuclear secu­rity sum­mit ready to clar­ify his caught-on-tape words even at the risk of over­shad­ow­ing his mes­sage for a sec­ond day. He fielded a ques­tion but failed to address the pre­sump­tu­ous­ness of plot­ting 2013 strat­egy with Rus­sia when, in fact, he must win elec­tion again for any of that to matter.

For Rus­sia, the issues of nuclear weapons reduc­tion and the pro­posed mis­sile shield are related. Russ­ian fears of new U.S. mis­siles at its doorstep in Europe have helped to stymie fur­ther progress on nuclear arms reduc­tions after a break­through agree­ment two years ago.

Obama said he wants to spend the rest of this year work­ing through tech­ni­cal issues with the Rus­sians, and said it was not sur­pris­ing that a deal couldn’t be com­pleted quickly.

“I don’t think it’s any sur­prise that you can’t start that a few months before pres­i­den­tial and con­gres­sional elec­tions in the United States, and at a time when they just com­pleted elec­tions in Rus­sia, and they’re in the process of a pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion,” Obama told reporters. He spoke after mak­ing a sep­a­rate announce­ment on nuclear security.

The pres­i­dent also sought twice to use humor to dis­pense with the controversy.

Before tak­ing his seat at the nuclear sum­mit, he caught Medvedev’s eyes and said “Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Obama then cov­ered up his micro­phone in jest, enjoy­ing a hearty laugh and hand­shake with the Russ­ian leader.

And when he decided to offer his expla­na­tion about the flap, Obama said, “First of all, are the mics on?”

Obama’s can­did remarks Mon­day illus­trated the polit­i­cal con­straints that hem in any pres­i­dent who is run­ning for re-election and deal­ing with a con­gres­sional cham­ber — in this case, the House — con­trolled by the rival party.

Repub­li­cans have fought Obama fiercely on health care, taxes and other issues. They are eager to deny him any polit­i­cal vic­to­ries in a sea­son in which they feel the White House is within reach.

Mitt Rom­ney, the lead­ing Repub­li­can con­tender to face Obama this fall, told a San Diego audi­ence the unguarded com­ments were “an alarm­ing and trou­bling development.”

“This is no time for our pres­i­dent to be pulling his punches with the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and not telling us what he’s intend­ing to do with regards to our mis­sile defense sys­tem, with regards to our mil­i­tary might and with regards to our com­mit­ment to Israel,” said Rom­ney, a for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor who often faces charges of hav­ing been flex­i­ble on his own poli­cies over the years.

Rick San­to­rum, who is Romney’s chief rival, said Tues­day that Obama’s com­ments sug­gested he is will­ing to sac­ri­fice U.S. secu­rity and the secu­rity of its allies.

“This isn’t about pol­i­tics. This is about the president’s real agenda,” San­to­rum said in Beaver Dam, Wis. “The president’s real agenda is to with­draw, to allow — whether it’s the Rus­sians or the Chi­nese or who­ever it is, the Ira­ni­ans — let them have their run of the table because America’s no longer in the busi­ness of pro­tect­ing our­selves and our allies.”

Repub­li­can can­di­date Newt Gin­grich also ques­tioned Obama’s motives.

“I’m curi­ous, how many other coun­tries has the pres­i­dent promised that he’d have a lot more flex­i­bil­ity the morn­ing he doesn’t have to answer to the Amer­i­can peo­ple?” Gin­grich said Mon­day on CNN.

Nei­ther Obama nor Medvedev knew they were being heard when they con­ferred qui­etly at what was billed as their last meet­ing of Medvedev’s pres­i­dency. He leaves office in May, to be replaced by the incom­ing Vladimir Putin.

Accord­ing to ABC News, Medvedev replied in Eng­lish: “I under­stand. I will trans­mit this infor­ma­tion to Vladimir.”

Obama said the way the Repub­li­cans seized on his com­ments only made his point that the atmos­phere is too politi­cized right now to advance arms con­trol with Russia.

“The only way I get this stuff done is if I’m con­sult­ing with the Pen­ta­gon, if I’m con­sult­ing with Con­gress, if I’ve got bipar­ti­san sup­port, and the cur­rent envi­ron­ment is not con­ducive to those kinds of thought­ful con­sul­ta­tions,” Obama said. “I think we’ll do bet­ter in 2013.”

There, again, Obama’s remarks sug­gested he feels good about his re-election prospects.

Posted by AP News on Mar 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.