When In Moscow, Talk About The Weather

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The National Security Council may want to start hiring meteorologists, for the future of U.S. foreign policy is apparently written in the skies. First came the greeting between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Monday, which I summarize in the lead of my Time.com story on the day’s events.

Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev, Presidents of the former Cold War rival empires, greeted each other like old friends on Monday, with a cheery chat about the clouds. “Even the weather favors such an intercourse between us,” the Russian leader said in a Kremlin sitting room, striking an optimistic tone on a drizzly day. Obama played along. “We might as well be inside today,” he said.

Then Tuesday morning, Obama again referred to the heavens upon meeting Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin for breakfast. Looking out the window with Putin at his resplendent dacha–pool table, giant LCD TV playing a black-and-white documentary about Stalin–Obama said, “Looks good. I also want to thank the Prime Minister for arranging very nice weather.” The vast powers of the former Soviet Union know no bounds.

The weather comments did not stop there. At about noon on Tuesday, Obama gave a combination commencement and foreign policy address to the New Economic School in Moscow. “As someone who was born in Hawaii, I’m glad to be here in July instead of January,” he joked at the beginning. Indeed.