It didn’t take very long to explore them:
When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it’s not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming…
The mood in Obama’s foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The “first Pacific president,” as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama’s currency isn’t as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington’s new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.
State actors negotiating on the basis of thinly veiled self-interest and from positions of perceived relative power?
Quelle surprise.
Perhaps if the president’s men had done a little light reading.
Update: It appears that the tingle is gone from Chris Matthew’s leg.
A Lot Like Jimmy Carter’ – NO – really??
I am shocked…Who could have seen this coming…..EVERYONE who has a wit of common sense.
That’s why the ” McCain for President” stickers have remained on the back of my pickup truck.
Even SNL has noticed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZXEShSIFks
Not to mention that the Gallup numbers for “approve” and disapprove are only 4 pts apart now.
Gotta wonder if everyone is feeling good still. Or maybe they’re starting to realize the republic did not elect a smart man, much less one who has the interests of the Republic in heart.
The bloom is off the rose…not that I ever thought it had a bloom. It would seem that it may finally be dawning on people that they elected some skunk cabbage instead.
I agree, Kris … Americans are finally beginning to realize that Obama’s hug-a-thug approach to diplomacy has large and lasting drawbacks.
Now, if we can only rescue our healthcare with a little bit of common sense, we might be able to salvage something from this trainwreck.
Marianne
Ever negotiate with someone far out of their depth? It’s like playing basketball against a 4-year old; you control every aspect of the game, and you wind up toying with your opponent. (BTW, I’ve never done that to a 4-year old) Obama is the little kid and is getting his *ss kicked. It would be funny if it was someone other than the POTUS. As it is, it’s tragic.
On target. Been thinking this for some time…and then I came across this from Bookie: “The Perils of an Affirmative Action President.” The real shorthand version is: Hey…you told us he is brilliant and accomplished, so how come we haven’t seen the beef?
Politely laid out commentary how there is no record of all that hs supposedly had done that would make him the ideal candidate….
Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.
Really? Bowing and scraping and he didn’t lose a teeny little bit of face?
He was bending over to pick it up after being slapped so hard by real politik.
Cdr S adds some editorial cartoon perspective, too.
I am not optimistic guys. We’ve always managed to dodge the bullet before but then we’ve never had a truly dedicated ideologue in the Presidency before. Obama is going for broke on the domestic side, hoping to embed his agenda so deeply in the fiber/matrix of our legal & regulatory regime that undoing his workings will be almost impossible given the nature of the legislative process in a divided government. His entire foreign policy–such as it is–is simply designed to buy time and keep cost & casualties down in the Middle East to a tolerable level so long as outright defeat does not become self-evident. He will string the Mid-East process out as long as he can–anything to buy time for the total implementation of his domestic agenda. He is going for cap & trade, control of the airwaves & internet–the whole ball of wax. Just follow the daily news–he is steadily moving on all fronts without ANY signs of slackening. Just because much of this hasn’t hit the legislative front and the MSM public domain yet doesn’t mean that his minions aren’t busy as bees in the halls and meeting rooms of the FCC, the FTC, EPA, etc. Proposed regulations are being written for everything from control of our thermostats to the production of ammunition to the ownership of radio stations even as I type. Be VERY AFRAID.
I am… The attention span of the voting public is short.
Virgil,
You are right on target. The imPOTUS is the product of the Gramcian March and the front for Sorus and others of that ilk. He is an empty suit who is surrounded by those who would put this country in chains.
Virgil, I hate to disagree, but we have seen precisely all of this at least once before. Woodrow Wilson seized every power you describe and more during the Great War, and we managed to beat nearly all of it back after he shuffled off the stage. Roosevelt tried to add plenty (he went so far as to actually call his czars, dictators!). A lot of that was pruned back after WW2. Johnson added some while the nation was otherwise distracted, and it too was eventually rolled back. Men come, men go. So too with their “legacies.” It won’t be easy, and I can guarantee that rolling back this broad-front overreach will definitely suck (in the wallet if nowhere else), but we’ve beaten back worse. If nothing else, recall and take heart from Sun-Tzu: “If the opponent is strong everywhere, then everywhere he is weak.” This broad front isn’t very deep, which is why they tried it as a fly-by-night operation. They failed.
We have indeed seen it before, in the three cases mentioned and others (most notably Abraham Lincoln–Bensel’s _Yankee Leviathan_ is well-researched although a tedious read). However, there is always hysteresis–the reaction never returns the system to its starting point, and some of the changes will withstand the “rollback.”
Rasmussen reports that 41% “strongly disapprove” of Obama’s performance as opposed to 28% who “strongly approve”. This is his worst rating so far.
Political “gravity” at work? You know, when you run out of gas at Flt level 50K…
[...] Lex has the details….. [...]
Excuse me, test.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
Well he didn’t even make it to his first anniversary as President before being exposed by his own arrogance and inexperience as the joke that he is.
Too bad the media can’t own up to promoting this messiah just over a year ago.
Too bad we (and the world) are stuck with this embarrassment for three more years.
Now, OldT6, what makes you think the media believes it has any blame here? They trumpeted his intelligence, his achievements, his qualification. When he screws up, obviously it will be the fault of the opposition. Probably Glenn Beck. Or Rush Limbaugh. Or they’ll find somebody.
Asking the MSM to back down on a claim is kind of like asking a dog to quit bringing you that slobber-encrusted fossil chew-toy he adores so much — maybe it smells bad and perhaps it will kill you to touch it, but to the dog it’s a gift he’d like to offer.
With the MSM, Obama is a gift they’ve no interest in going against.
– Max
When you lose the former head of the CFR , you are close to losing the core of the Democrat foreign policy apparatchik:
Delicious irony that, the cognoscenti blue on blue on the Foggy Bottom crowd.
Sheesh……..he can’t even look presidential while traveling:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-22/think-before-you-travel/#gallery=973;page=2
Is that a Mao jacket he has on?
Oh, good Lord, Ken, no!
I’d call it a bomber jacket, except that it goes down to the hips.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; ditto for a leather jacket.
I like the comment that his extreme bow, not the slight nod called for, revealed a “Karate Kid” understanding of Japanese protocol.
Loved that Chris Matthews link:
Then there was, there was what happened in China: Obama got nothing in the way of concessions over there in spite of playing the polite visitor.
Chris, you’re a bit off there. The cause/effect relationship is more accurately portrayed if for “in spite of” you substitute “because of”.
And, you know, it’s a political feel for decision-making. That wonderful thing you just did about President Johnson’s feel for the moment. That’s what I think is missing now with this group in the White House. I don’t know where it’s gone. They certainly had it during the campaign.
A political feel for decision making? WHEN? What he had during the campaign was a national news media that hated George Bush and that fell in love with the idea of the story behind the first black man to run for and win the Presidency. That pretty much covered up a multitude of sins, such as picking an incompetent for VP, saying there were 57 states, etc., etc. But since becoming President he hasn’t shown one iota of having any feel – or ability, for that matter – of making decisions. Just look at what he’s doing with Afghanistan.
#$#%#$*&! amateur empty suit. VX, I fear your accessment is dead nuts on. BTW, that tingle in Whiffleball Matthews’s leg was sciatica.
Looking at how much “progress” we’ve made since Jan, I’m really afraid of where we will be in another 3 years. Really am.
The nice thing about progress is it implies an advancement towards a goal.
Obama promised us change. That merely means movement, for or against a particular goal is not even suggested. He never promised progress or a goal.
Which should not come as a suprise to anybody capable of parsing language and a knowledge of his record of merely voting present.
I like change as much as the next guy, I’d just prefer it be in a direction is all.
– Max