Russia and Snowden sitting in a tree...

[HairOfTheDog]

...what’s clear every day is that the two countries haven’t achieved the rose-strewn “reset” that was promised when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered that oversize prop button to the Russian foreign minister back in 2009.

Putin has shown little interest in that. Even as the United States and Russia sort through their intertwined arrangements over missile defense, terrorist tracking, disarmament, Syria and Iran, he’s used his grandstanding against the United States to try to establish himself as a more dominant player on the world stage and in using his international brinksmanship to beat up the opposition.

More than he’s done to recalibrate Americans’ views on surveillance, Snowden — whom just about everyone in Washington and Moscow knows Putin probably would have locked away and eventually killed — had he been a Russian who’d leaked secret — has become a reason for Republicans and Democrats both in Congress to recall one area of longstanding bipartisan agreement: they all hate Russia.

Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee said, “President Obama must make clear to President Putin that there can be no ‘business as usual’ as long as Russia continues to harbor this fugitive from justice,”. “He should immediately announce that he will not meet one-on-one with the Russian president at the upcoming G-20 Summit in Russia in September. Putin knows how to play hardball, so should we.”

Full story:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/ed...Page2.html