July 8, 2009

Oooey gooey diplomacy

Am I seeing things, or did Vlad Putin - Vlad and I are on a first-syllable basis - serve Toaster Strudels when President Obama arrived for breakfast yesterday?

Visual evidence from the New York Times:


Seriously, I think that look on Putin's face pretty much says: You take the strawberry strudel, Mr. Obama, and I'll go nuclear.

Oh, and if you're one of those folks who actually reads the news instead of just scanning the pretty photos, here's the story about their meeting.

One passage about U.S.-Russia diplomacy that I found interesting, if not very surprising:
Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev announced an agreement to open a joint early-warning center to share data on missile launchings. But Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin announced the same agreement in 1998. Mr. Clinton then announced it again with President Vladimir V. Putin in 2000. Mr. Putin and President George W. Bush recommitted to it as recently as 2007. And none of them ever actually built the center.

Well, good to know we're moving in the right direction on that front.

3 comments:

bugs said...

But at least they're all in agreement that one needs to be built.
And, yes, they look suspiciously like toaster strudels - not that I ever had one!

Trooper Thorn said...

The Russians have come along way since the fall of the Soviet Union. Under Brezhnev, the best they could offer was stale danish warmed on the thighs of Estonian farm girls.

Your escalator operator said...

B - Me either. I guess we were a Pop-Tarts family.

TT - Thanks for the comment. Would those have been called Estonian waffles?