It seems that some think he may be in way over his head.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6210152/President-Barack-Obama-is-beginning-to-look-out-of-his-depth.html
The man who has run nothing more demanding than the Harvard Law Review is beginning to look out of his depth in the world's top job. His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it.
That’s all well and good, but did they offer any specific criticisms? They certainly did.
Regimes in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran simply pocket his concessions and carry on as before. The picture emerging from the White House is a disturbing one, of timidity, clumsiness and short-term calculation. Some say he is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter.
The grizzled veterans of the Democratic leadership in Congress have found Mr Obama and his team of bright young advisers a pushover. That has gravely weakened his flagship domestic campaign, for health-care reform, which fails to address the greatest weakness of the American system: its inflated costs. His free trade credentials are increasingly tarnished too. His latest blunder is imposing tariffs on tyre imports from China, in the hope of gaining a little more union support for health care. But at a time when America's leadership in global economic matters has never been more vital, that is a dreadful move, hugely undermining its ability to stop other countries engaging in a ruinous spiral of protectionism.
That’s how our hopey-changey President is being perceived overseas… growing ineffectuality.
Personally, I think there is a lot of truth contained in this piece. I don’t agree with everything, but PresBo DOES appear to be more about show and style than he is about substance. I’m not impressed with his leadership abilities, nor about the direction in which he wants to lead us. He’s making mistakes… and many of them are mistakes that should never have been made.
It's a curious thing how European journalists come to view "The Obama". In Feb/Mar, he was a legend and remaking the terrible relationship between Europe and America. Meanwhile, they couldn't explain why Gitmo was continuing (they still don't mention it today), why Iraq/Afghanistan continue, why German troops have been increased, and why nothing much has changed in eight months.
ReplyDeleteNone of the European leaders have much of a connection to the President (at any level). In fact, Merkel is now considered the most liked political figure in Europe. The Obama influence on the German elections? Zero. In fact, when some reporter woke up in March and asked who the German Obama was...the air in the liberal left balloon kind of dissipated.
Gordon Brown? He faces serious issues and can't possibly win the next election.
The Russians? Zero respect and they pretty much carry their own weight in any conversation with the President.
I think the majority of world figures who have been around....now view him as a light-weight on the world-stage. If he had generated some relationships...he might have had more pull and more understandings....but that opportunity has come and gone.
Presently, I can't think of a single world-leader that President Obama personally connects with.
Check out this editorial roundup from Die Speigel about Obama and the missile defense issue.
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