Biden’s position on Russia and Medvedev according to Cohen.(Old)

“but the real thing they’ve done that is a mistake is they’ve tried to play as they put it, the Medvedev card against Putin. Putin the bad guy Medvedev is a good guy he’s our guy he’s our horse will ride him. First of all this is misinformed about the situation in Russia. Medvedev is not even a horse shit. He may become a horse but at the moment there’s only one real horse running in this race. But secondly Russian the Russian political class sees what they’re doing and they resent it they don’t like it. Even Merkel who’s close to Putin complained to Washington about this and told them to stop it. It was demeaning to everybody to be doing this but it’s a reflex. Secondly there is still Washington’s presumption that Russia is weak, and we don’t have to treat it as a great power and that if Russia wants to be meaningful in world affairs it needs the United States. And this is what we were told by Vice President Biden on three very publicised occasions. When he went to Georgia to Tbilisi right after Obama left Moscow last July with Medvedev and basically said Russia is a spent power it’s a dying nation we don’t have to negotiate with them. People said that’s old Joe running his mouth but it was a scripted speech and it reappeared two weeks later as an interview on The Wall Street Journal. So this is the position of a powerful faction in the Obama administration. It is Obama’s position I have no idea but it’s certainly Biden’s position.”