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Mark Steyn posts on the president who never calls.
There was an odd moment during Tuesday’s White House press briefing when Ed Henry of Fox News noted that the President was spending three out of five days this week fundraising for his party, and wondered, in effect, whether he still did any work. Press Secretary Josh Earnest responded:
“Well, I will hazard a guess that a significant portion of the President’s time each of those days will be dedicated to participating in the presidential daily briefing, getting updates from his national security team about the situation on the ground, making phone calls to world leaders, consulting with his national security officials who are traveling across the world…”
Well, I will “hazard a guess” that he’s actually making very few “phone calls to world leaders”. Bush may have been loathed by large numbers of Europeans and Arabs, but he had very cordial relationships with their leaders, from Blair and Merkel to the brace of Abdullahs in Jordan and Saudi. Obama’s too cool to work the phones. Which helps explain that photograph above. With regard to what’s happening in Gaza, the US president has no relationships with anybody in the region who matters. To define American “allies” as broadly as possible, name one who has any reason to trust Obama or his emissaries. In Cairo, General Sisi regards Obama as a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer; in Riyadh, King Abdullah regards him as the enabler of the Shia Persian nuclear program; and in Amman, the other King Abdullah regards him as the feckless bungler who’s left the Jordanians with the world’s wealthiest terrorist group on their eastern border.
Shuttle diplomacy, of the kind the vainglorious Kerry is attempting, only works if you already have a relationship. …
Charles Krauthammer defends President Vacant. Sort of.
The president’s demeanor is worrying a lot of people. From the immigration crisis on the Mexican border to the Islamic State rising in Mesopotamia, Barack Obama seems totally detached from the world’s convulsions. When he does interrupt his endless rounds of golf, fundraising and photo ops, it’s for some affectless, mechanical, almost forced public statement.
Regarding Ukraine, his detachment — the rote, impassive voice — borders on dissociation. His U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, delivers an impassioned denunciation of Russia. Obama cautions that we not “get out ahead of the facts,” as if the facts of this case — Vladimir Putin’s proxies shooting down a civilian airliner — are in doubt.
The preferred explanation for the president’s detachment is psychological. He’s checked out. Given up. Let down and disappointed by the world, he is in withdrawal.
Perhaps.
But I’d propose an alternate theory, less psychological than intellectual, that gives him more credit: …
Jennifer Rubin posts on the tiresome passive-aggressive behavior of the administration towards Israel. Perhaps that is Valerie Jarrett’s specialty.
Chalk up a win for former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Both attacked the Obama administration for the Federal Aviation Administration ban on flights to Israel, Bloomberg by flying there himself and proclaiming it perfectly safe to fly into Ben Gurion and Cruz from the Senate floor in labeling it an economic boycott of Israel and demanding details about the FAA’s action. AIPAC, which is becoming increasingly vocal in its objections to U.S. policy on Gaza and on the Iran nuclear talks, went public as well, releasing a statement that called the ban “overly harsh and excessive.” The statement argued that the ban “could have the unintended effect of encouraging terrorists to become even more committed to make civil aviation a target.”
The administration bristled at the suggestion that it was, as was widely perceived, using the ban as a means of pressuring Israel. In any event, by quickly pulling the ban just hours after it was announced and the backlash ensued, the administration wound up reinforcing the conclusion that this had been a strong-arm maneuver. An administration now infamous for its passive-aggressive behavior once again was left looking feckless. …
Ed Klein, author of Blood Feud, writes on the disintegration of our foreign policy.
Wherever we look today—from the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East to the post-Cold War frontier in Ukraine to the South China Sea to our border with Mexico— our world appears to be falling apart.
This naturally raises a serious question in the minds of many people: If America, the indispensable nation, had been doing its job of holding the global system together, couldn’t this chaos and anarchy have been avoided?
The simple answer is, yes.
But if you listen to Hillary Clinton, the unraveling of the international order was inevitable under the leadership—or lack of leadership—of Barack Obama. As I reported in my book “Blood Feud,” Hillary places the blame for the sorry state of the world squarely on the man in the Oval Office.
“The thing with Obama is that he can’t be bothered, and there is no hand on the tiller half the time,” she complained to a group of friends shortly after she left her post as secretary of state. “That’s the story of the Obama presidency. No hand on the f******g tiller.” …
… Just before Caroline Kennedy took up her post as ambassador to Japan, she invited Bill and Hillary Clinton to lunch at her Park Avenue apartment in New York City. Caroline wanted to know from Hillary, the former secretary of state, what she could expect from the Obama administration.
“Don’t expect to get your real marching orders from State,” Hillary said. “The way the Obama government works, everything important in foreign policy comes from the White House. And Valerie [Jarrett] pretty much runs the show down there. You’ll feel Valerie breathing down your neck all the way to Tokyo. She’s going to have a lot to say about how you represent our country in Japan, and believe me, she won’t be shy about it.”
According to the Clintons, who later described their lunch with friends, Caroline was stunned by this news.
It should come as a sobering wakeup call to the rest of us.
John Hinderaker says even the left in Israel sees our president as an enemy.
Haaretz is Israel’s establishment, liberal newspaper. Scott once described it to me in shorthand as the New York Times of Israel. So the paper is a natural ally of a Democratic U.S. administration.
That is what makes this article by Barak Ravid remarkable. It is titled Kerry’s latest cease-fire plan: What was he thinking? …
… Hamas alone is responsible for the bloodshed, and it was never realistic to think that the Obama administration could end the fighting; not as long as Netanyahu remains determined to secure his people’s safety. Nevertheless, it is newsworthy that even Israelis on the left have come to see Obama’s foreign policy as coming from outer space.
Telegraph, UK says obama “has already checked out of his job.”
President Obama has emotionally checked out of his job a couple of years early, it seems. How can one tell?
Candidates for president who brazenly assume they are the inevitable victor are sometimes accused of “measuring the drapes” for the White House.
Obama, conversely, seems to be prematurely packing his bags in hopes for an early departure.
Just last week, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that “The First Family is believed to be in escrow on a contemporary home in a gated community where entertainers Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once maintained estates”. George Santayana observed that “Americans don’t solve problems, they leave them behind”. Perhaps the president is taking this to heart.
For rumours to catch fire, an element of truth must typically be involved.
The fact that the press would find relevance in speculating on Obama’s post-White House residence – and identify California as the kind of scene the future ex-president would want to hang out in when he leaves office – is perhaps telling. …