Monday, December 27, 2010

OP-ED: Obama Has Lost The World



After the 2010 elections, it’s not exactly news that Obama has lost America. But in a less public referendum, he also lost the world. Obama’s cocktail party tour of the world’s capitals may look impressive on a map, but is irrelevant on a policy level. In less than two years, the White House has gone from being the center of world leadership to being irrelevant, from protecting world freedom to serving as a global party planning committee.

Even the Bush Administration’s harshest critics could never have credibly claimed that George W. Bush was irrelevant. He might have been hated, pilloried and shouted about– but he couldn’t be ignored. However Obama can be safely ignored. Invited to parties, given the chance to show off his cosmopolitan sophisticated by reciting one or two words in the local lingo, read off a teleprompter, along with some cant about the need for everyone to pull together and make the world a better place, and then dismissed for the rest of the evening.

As a world leader, he makes a passable party guest. He has a broad smile, brings along his own gifts and is famous in the way that celebrities, rather than prime ministers and presidents are famous. On an invitation list, he is more Bono than Sarkozy, Leonardo DiCaprio not Putin. You don’t invite him to talk turkey, not even on Thanksgiving. He’s just one of those famous people with a passing interest in politics who gets good media attention, but who has nothing worthwhile to say. READ MORE...

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