If so, the outgoing US president hardly achieved what he was aiming for.
"I promise you nobody came home and said, 'you know what, I'm voting for Hillary because I heard today juxtaposition between Putin and Saddam Hussein and that is it! That is all I needed to hear! I don't know about the future, the economy, crime, immigration, world events, military, World War III. I don't care about that," Lionel said.
During his speech Obama compared Putin's approval rating to that of Iraq's late strongman Saddam Hussein. For Lionel, this comparison was a non-starter.
Lionel referred to the comparison as a "hoary and old reference," as well as a waste of time since this is not what voters want to here.
Americans are concerned with domestic issues. They want the president or the candidates to say what the next US leader is "going to do for me now, for my family in the future now," Lionel said. "More importantly, I say again, the number one issue on every news show, on every blog, on every alternative foreign media is Hillary Clinton's health. That is the issue," he observed.
Obama's remarks came after Trump called Putin a stronger leader than the current US president, sparking a firestorm in the Democratic camp. Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof called these comments "a very spiteful statement."
Daniel Wagner, managing director of Risk Cooperative, was wondering whether the presidential election campaign in the US could become any more "ridiculous."
"I really don't understand why there has to be some sort of connotation that anything Russian is automatically bad, but, unfortunately, there are many people in America who would equate anything Russian with being bad just like they would equate anything with China to be bad. They don’t understand the world," he told RT.
