More red lines? More empty gestures? Who is this cypher to go arounds pretending strength and resolve? From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama is warning Russia “there will be costs” for any military maneuvers it launches in Ukraine, a move U.S. and Ukrainian officials say they believe to be already underway.

So what are these costs?

Officials say Obama may retaliate by canceling a trip to Russia this summer for an international summit and could also cut off trade discussions with Moscow.

Or as Charles Krauthammer has said:

The Ukrainians, and I think everybody, is shocked by the weakness of Obama’s statement. I find it rather staggering.

Anyway, if the lights are going out all over Europe and the West, it will be because of our war on fossil fuels. If there’s another kind of war coming it will be because of American weakness, not because of its strength. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine appears to have begun. But what needs to be treasured is this:

In 2008, when she was the GOP vice presidential nominee, Palin questioned in a speech whether then-Sen. Barack Obama would have the foreign policy credentials to handle a scenario in which Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. . . .

The former Alaska governor was happy to highlight her prediction on Friday and scold those who criticized her 2008 comments.

“Yes, I could see this one from Alaska,” she said on Facebook. That remark was a reference to a 2008 interview in which Palin argued that Alaska’s proximity to Russia helped boost her foreign policy experience.
“I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine.”

In October 2008, Foreign Policy labeled Palin’s prediction as “strange.”

Does the left ever get anything of importance right?

UPDATE: To which must be added this:

Oh they are shaking in their boots [with laughter] in Moscow tonight. Can’t somebody show up to work at the White House and tell this Jello-spined juggalo that his warning and threats just aren’t making it? I mean really. This tough guy spiel is just an embarrassment:

“The Obama administration is evaluating whether President Barack Obama will go forward with plans to attend an international summit in Russia this summer amid reports of Russian intervention in Ukraine. A senior administration official says it’s hard to see how Obama and European leaders would attend the G-8 summit in Sochi, which is scheduled for June.”

So let me get this straight. The “penalty” for Russia if it keeps its hold on the Ukraine is that it doesn’t get to waste precious summer days in June in the presence of this cowardly little narcissist and his entourage of fluffers and fellators? Well, yes, that would certainly make any leader of Russia give up the security of his fleet’s access to the Crimea, the Black Sea, and from there into the Mediterranean. Let’s not forget that Russia lost the Crimean War in the middle of the 19th Century [not that long ago in the Russian mind] which took about half a million lives on all sides. In that war, most of the fighting took place for control of the Black Sea, with land battles on the Crimean peninsula in southern Russia. Deja vu all over again? Why not? That’s the history of Russia writ large.

Simply put, if Russia cannot maintain control of the Crimea and Sevastopol it cannot maintain the Black Sea Fleet.

The Black Sea Fleet is considered to have been founded by Prince Potemkin on May 13, 1783, together with its principal base, the city of Sevastopol. Formerly commanded by such legendary admirals as Dmitriy Senyavin and Pavel Nakhimov, it is a fleet of enormous historical and political importance for Russia.

The Black Sea Fleet enables Russia to control and dominate its close in “backyard” of Georgia as well as have access to the Mediterranean and, hence, the Middle East and Suez. Without the Crimea and Sevastapol, Russia ceases to be a nation with global reach. This is something Putin will not do. Ever. This is one of those annoying strategic situations in which trying to force Russia to step back can easily become a trigger for thermonuclear war. And Russia is still in the strategic nuke business.

Instead of understanding how history lives in the present and shapes the future, this pig-ignorant “president” doesn’t have a foreign policy, all he has is a series of poses and postures; none of which are all that butch.

Indeed, it would seem that the only group on the planet that are afraid of this putz are D.C. Republicans. And I’m not too sure about them any longer.