The Age of Obama was supposed to be one of 'smart diplomacy' aimed at 'strengthening our old alliances'.
Until it wasn't. That was really just yet another rhetorical club used to clobber GWB over the head during the campaign.
The reality ever since has been a foreign policy that is frenetic, apparently driven by polls and personalities, untethered from reality, sluggish and disorganized, the landscape polluted by unearned Nobel Prizes, joke 'reset' buttons, Outing as a criminal-- and then publicly backing --Hamid Karzai, Iranian intransigence over it's nuclear program, Chinese lecturing America's President on the finer points of capitalism, North Korean laughter at the Kid with Big Ears.
But, at least there's been the photo ops. Anytime you can photograph Obama at least looking Presidential, he considers it a victory of sorts.
And speaking of unearned Nobel Prizes, it seems the President intends to be ungracious to the Norwegians when accepts the prize.
Ask Tiger Woods what happens when you piss a Scandinavian off, Mr. President.
The British, perhaps our most important allies, haven't been feeling the love for some time. Obama has treated Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, as if he were the 'special' cousin your family kept hidden in the attic. Anglo-American relations are at an all-time low, so much so, that Obama has pulled off the near-impossible, and has both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail pissed off at him. Way to go! And they said George Bush was the clueless one?
Someone is in way over his head and doesn't know it yet. Unfortunately, the enemies of the West and of all decent people know it all too well.
3 comments:
Hey Matthew, you forgot the tacky ego-centric gifts that the Obamas keep giving out to the European leaders.
What the Obamas really need is a Class and Etiquette Czar. But then again, pigs with lipstick are still gonna be pigs.
Now, Greasywrench, we don't want to re-open the can of worms that was opened when that phrase "lipstick on a pig" was first uttered September before last. I'm also certain that Clarence Page or Eugene Robinson will find some way in which that is is "racist".
Actually, I when it comes to cheap DVD's and "Reset buttons" pasted with execrable Russian, or bowing to Saudi Princes and so forth, it's perhaps too much to ask The One to be aware of such details of protocol and taste (they don't teach those things at the Community Organizer School he found inside the matchbook cover).
But, I wonder "What the HELL is going on at The State Department?"
Don't they have people who speak Russian anymore? Don't they have people stationed in London who can tell them teh Wal-Mart version of Donny Brasco won't work in a Brit DVD Player? Isn;t there someone saying "Now, Mr.Prsident, don't kiss that asshole-in-a-pile-of-drty-laundry's ass, because it's just not done?"
Is ther even someone there who knows how to *USE THE INTERNET* to obtain this information if it isn't readily available?
Apparently not. It's almost as if the blind lead the blind.
NTSC vs PAL DVD's? Who knew?
Obama refers to the Austrian language?
110 VS 220 voltage. Current schmurent.
I could go on for hours.
Complete amateurs and morons. What they need in the White House is a copy of "Presidential Behavior For Dummies". I'm sure he can pick up an issue at Best Buy.
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