Obama calls on Putin to pull back from Ukraine border - day late, Ruble short.

Uh-oh. Look out, Mr. Putin. You're in for it now. President Obama is caught in the middle of an embarrassing situation over the whole Ukraine "thing" and he's decided to get tough. It's time for action. He's not going to sit around, waiting for you to suddenly realize that you should pull your troops back.

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He's going to tell you that he'd like you simmer down. If you don't reverse course, that's fine, but be warned; the President might ...ask again. In an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, Obama announced that it was time for Russia to ease off the military gas.

"It's well known and well acknowledged that you've seen a range of troops massing along that border under the guise of military exercises. But these are not what Russia would normally be doing. And, you know, it may simply be an effort to intimidate Ukraine or it may be that they've got additional plans," Mr. Obama said. To resolve and de-escalate the situation right now, Mr. Obama said Russia needs "to move back those troops and to begin negotiations directly with the Ukrainian government, as well as the international community."

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You hear that Russia? You've had your fun, now let's all settled down. That'll show him. If only Putin was interested in de-escalation, this would be exactly the right strategy. The problem is that, so far, he's shown no predilection for calming the situation. He's getting everything he wants and his American counterpart has been woefully outplayed, so why would he stop? At this point, demanding Putin pull his troops back from Ukraine is a bit like asking a gambler to leave the table when he hasn't lost a hand in five hours. Obama refused to give specifics regarding potential future U.S. actions, but he did offer some of his ideas about why Putin is doing what he's doing. In what might be the understatement of the year, President Obama claimed that Putin held a "grievance about what he considers to be the loss of the Soviet Union."

"You would have thought that after a couple of decades that there'd be an awareness on the part of any Russian leader that the path forward is not to revert back to the kinds of practices that, you know, were so prevalent during the Cold War but, in fact, to move forward with further integration with the world economy and to be a responsible international citizen."

In other words, President Obama is saying that the 80's called and it says this new Russia looks awfully familiar. If only we had elected a President who was able to see this coming....

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