So it’s going well.

Obama is in Russia, visiting with the two Russian leaders to discuss everything global. After commenting last week that Vladimir Putin needed to realize that the Cold War was over, I wasn’t sure how these meetings would go. While Putin is no longer President (he was from 2000-2008), he is now the Prime Minister, and he was able to basically hand-pick his successor, Medvedev.

Needless to say, Obama is meeting with Putin and it would seem that that is the conversation that really matters. (I wonder if Putin is on Twitter?..) Reuters in fact definitively referred to Prime Minister Putin “Russia’s most powerful politician.”

An interesting twist to Putin’s persona is that he is a former KGB spy- can you imagine if Obama were a former FBI agent? A former covert FBI operative? I mean who’s running that place over there? Next thing you know they’ll start putting international businessmen with ties to shady big businesses in leadership positions or something…

Obama is getting a lot of press mentions for his own slip up, poking a tongue-in-cheek-like (but not on purpose, but maybe kind of, but not really) point at the fact that Putin still has great power in Russia.

"I am aware of not only the extraordinary work that you've done on behalf of the Russian people in your previous role as prime minis-, uh, as president, but in your current role as prime minister," Obama said.
Slip ups and reported awkwardness (Reuters also says that Putin mostly avoided eye contact with Obama) aside, Obama is saying that the meetings are a clear and present opportunity to improve relations between the two nations. Apparently the Cold War is going the way of global warming…

"My interest is in dealing directly with my counterpart, the President (Medvedev), but also to reach out to Prime Minister Putin and all other influential sectors in Russian society,” said Obama.
For his part, Putin is a politically-savvy Obama fan. Along with the rest of the world, he sees Obama’s presidency as a chance for a new start. The way he put it to Obama was: "We link hopes for development of our relationship with your name."

No pressure.

Talks will continue of course, but for now the meetings produced promising agreements on a nuclear arms cut target, another deal that allows U.S. troops to fly across Russia to get to Afghanistan, and a joint commission to continue to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia. That’s pretty good work, Obama. Remember when people were saying just last year that he may not be cut out for international politics? What was his foreign policy, anyway? What kind of credentials does this guy have? Wasn’t that one of McCain’s big rallying cries?

Luckily Putin links relationship development hopes to Obama’s name. While Putin’s guarded optimism (or political savvy, if you ask me) points toward hope, opinion polls in Russia show that the Russian people still distrust the U.S. and have yet to be convinced by Obama. Sounds a lot like most of the lefty liberals I know.

Tomorrow Obama will give a speech at Moscow’s New Economic School about democracy, the global economy and U.S. – Russia relations. Will that be on YouTube?