Russian TV shows Obama, Kerry as cranky old men

The Kremlin-funded news channel Russia Today (RT) aired a television ad envisioning the world in 2035 where US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are cranky, disempowered men while their enemies rise to power.

The ad, released last week to mark the channel’s 10th anniversary, shows an aging Obama and Kerry sitting on Barack’s porch grumbling that “no one is afraid of us anymore.”

RT first pokes fun at Obama’s famous “Yes we can” 2008 election slogan and then proceeds to show a television set inside the house with RT coverage of a newly elected president Edward Snowden promising Americans a “new era of transparency.”

The commercial then takes a swipe at Kerry for previously calling the news network Putin’s “propaganda bullhorn,” by having both men utter the phrase dismissively at the TV footage of Snowden.

The video ends with the message: “RT. By this time, we’ll be 30 years on air.”

Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked classified NSA documents to the media, has been living in exile in Russia since June 2013 and faces US charges of espionage and theft of state property that could put him in jail for 30 years.

At the time, Putin said that Snowden’s arrival in Moscow was “a surprise,” and “like an unwanted Christmas gift.”

The Russian leader has declined to extradite him back to the US for trial.

The Snowden case has further strained US-Russian ties, already tense amid differences over Syria, Ukraine, and US criticism of Russia’s human rights record.