Sen. Chuck Schumer accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of “behaving like a school yard bully” in granting fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden temporary asylum, and urged President Obama to cancel a bilateral meeting between the two leaders next month. Does calling out Putin accomplish anything?

“The relationship between the United States and Russia is more poisonous than any time since the Cold War because of all of this,” Schumer said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“Putin’s behaving like a school yard bully,” he added. “Unless you stand up to that bully, they ask for more and more and more. Always going out of his way, Mr. Putin is, to poke us in the eye with Iran and Syria, now with Snowden.

“I would urge the president not to go to the bilateral meeting next month. That would give Putin the kind of respect he doesn’t deserve.”

While I am very conflicted on how I feel about Edward Snowden, I believe that the Russian government kicked the U.S. in the gut on granting him asylum. It also points to America’s lost of stature on the international stage.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

bully photo via shutterstock.com