Posted by
John Caile on Friday, October 02, 2009 12:58:45 PM
At the rate Obama is making mis-steps on the international stage, he may eclipse Jimmy Carter as the most inept president in recent history when it comes to foreign policy.
After a weak and unconvincing speech at the U.N. attempting to secure support for action against Iran, we now have Obama's embarrassing failure to persuade the Olympic Committee to bring the Olympics to America.
What is even more surprising is that in his bungled sales trip to Denmark to shill for the city of Chicago, Obama made a mistake that even amateurs in Chicago politics wouldn't have made - he went to this highly public meeting without having the deal done in advance. Talk about bush-league (pun intended).
I grew up in Chicago, and I have seen first hand how every neighborhood development program, every new facility, even the route of a new expressway, are all agreed to in private hand-shake meetings...months, sometimes even years, in advance. The agreement is "locked up" verbally long before the first article announcing a "preliminary study" even appears in the news.
So, for Obama, a veteran of "the Chicago way," to have failed to do something so basic as making sure that everything has been worked out before he makes a public spectacle of himself, gives even more credence to the charge that Obama is in over his head.
When it comes to serious international politics, Obama seems more and more to be, simply put, a lightweight. And that is not merely bad for Obama's own political career - it is downright dangerous for America.