Obama Defends His Open Mic Chat With Dmitry Medvedev

President Obama has been forced to defend recent remarks he unknowingly made into an open mic while speaking to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Obama was overheard on a live TV feed assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” on missile defense after the 2012 U.S. election.

“This is my last election,” remarked the American President to Medvedev at a nuclear arms summit in Seoul, South Korea. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”

Medvedev said that message would be relayed to incoming Russian President Vladmir Putin. Obama’s remark was rapidly seized upon by GOP presidential contenders and the media as evidence that Obama was hiding his true agenda before the election. GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney led the chorus, labeling the comments “troubling.”

On Tuesday, Obama offered an explanation for his overheard remarks, jokily opening with, “First of all, are the mikes on?” Adopting a more serious tone, Obama described missile defense as “extraordinarily complex, very technical,” and added it would be impossible to win broad consensus in Congress for any new major security agreements with Russia in the year of a U.S. election. He remarked:

“I don’t think it’s any surprise that you can’t start that a few months before a presidential and congressional elections in the United States, and at a time when they just completed elections in Russia, and they’re in the process of a presidential transition where a new president is going to be coming in in a little less than two months. Frankly, the current environment is not conducive to those kinds of thoughtful consultations. The stories you guys have been writing over the last 24 hours is probably pretty good evidence of that. I think we’ll do better in 2013.”

Is Obama’s explanation satisfactory to you, and how do you think it could affect his standing in this year’s elections?