This is an instructional AP headline: “Russia gives no ground despite US overtures.”

Today, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov praised Vice President Joe Biden’s recent kind words for Russia before making Biden seem foolish for ever uttering them:

“The U.S. administration sent a very strong signal, and the signal was heard-a signal that says they’re ready to resume the Russian and U.S. dialogue frankly and openly,” Ivanov told a news conference on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

But he said Russia did not feel it necessary to immediately reciprocate.

“It is not an Oriental bazaar,” he said. “And we do not trade the way people do in the bazaars.”

I guess Ivanov didn’t get the memo about “smart power.” He said Russia will continue to put up “small bases” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and restated Moscow’s threat to place Iskander missiles in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

There’s no second chance to make a first impression, and the Obama administration has opened up new avenues for American humiliation with Iran and Russia. If President Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary, & co. don’t cut their losses and stop treating uncompromising antagonists as misunderstood adolescents, we can count on a string of these headlines – differentiated only by their opening proper nouns.