Obama fails to impress abroad
Obama’s current trip abroad doesn’t seem to be going any better for him than the recent election did:
In private meetings with Mr. Obama on Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintao resisted his pressure on currency revaluation. Mr. Obama also failed to secure a free-trade agreement with South Korea by a deadline he set for Thursday, a blow to a president who has pledged to double U.S. exports over the next five years.
This is not a cause for rejoicing, even for those of us who aren’t exactly Obama fans. The US’s continuing economic woes, disagreement with Obama’s decision that stimulus comes first at the expense of deficit reduction, and Obama’s general domestic political weakness at the moment, are all factors. But I suspect there’s even more to it than that.
When I try to think of any significant foreign policy triumph for Obama since he became president, I pretty much draw a blank. The Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t awarded for any achievement other than mouthing platitudes that the liberals of Western Europe and Scandinavia like to hear. The failure to win the Olympics venue was also relatively unimportant, but it was symbolic of Obama’s wheel-spinning-to-come in foreign lands.
The secret is that word I used earlier: weakness. Obama is still liked abroad, for the most part. But he is not respected, and he is most definitely not feared. I’m afraid that he is considered a genial but inexperienced naif on the world stage.
Of course, not too many presidents have had much relevant background in international negotiation prior to taking on the job, so Obama is hardly unique in that respect. But some of them have had business experience in wheeling and dealing with power players. Or at the very least, they’ve appointed a seasoned Secretary of State to help them. Obama chose Hillary Clinton for that office, and she is virtually as devoid of relevant experience as he. It’s not a good combination.
What’s more, Obama has often seemed oblivious to the gaps in his own knowledge; in fact, he tends to see himself as superior. One of the Obama quotes that most disturbed me during his campaign for the presidency was this:
…[F]oreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain.
It’s ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton brags ”˜I’ve met leaders from eighty countries’”“I know what those trips are like! I’ve been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There’s a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then”“you go.”
“You do that in eighty countries””you don’t know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa”“knowing the leaders is not important”“-what I know is the people. . . .”
“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college”“I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . .”
There is something almost shocking about these statements. It’s not just that he’s ignorant of McCain’s rather extensive background of diplomatic travel with senators during his years as Naval liaison to the Senate, which gave him a fair amount of experience (read all about it here). It’s not just that, after these remarks, Obama then went ahead and made Clinton Secretary of State. It’s that he thinks that living in Indonesia forty years ago, as a child of six to ten years old, and any knowledge he did gain of the people there and their way of life, would give him special ability to sit at a negotiating table with foreign leaders and represent our interests. The same for a college trip to Pakistan.
In the realm of foreign policy and negotiation, as well as international economic policy and negotiation (heck, in most realms other than giving a speech containing vague promises and winning an election), I’m afraid that Obama suffers from what Donald Rumsfeld would call unknown unknowns: “things we don’t know we don’t know.” They can be among the most dangerous of all, as Rumsfeld himself came to learn.
Even while being Communists, China already knows what Obama refuses to acknowledge or understand: That capitalism, driven by the private busienss sector, drives economies. Noam Chomsky and Paul Krugman have never created one job. It appears Obama is of the same school of thought.
I know of a lot of faculty professor who were brilliant law students at one time. Almost all have ZERO understanding of basic economic and business principles.
And China is not the auto bond-holders. They can give a rat’s @ss who Obama thinks he is. It is not in their best interest to reevaluate their currency position, and other countries don’t see the purpose in entering into a trade agreement with a country that has a weak economy and declining production.
This reminds me of what Obama said to Patrick Gaspard (his political director), as recounted by Gaspard:
“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told Gaspard. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
I imagine that in addition to his foreign policy/negotiation inexperience, Obama may also be turning off world leaders with his attitude, as in “…I think I’m a better world leader than anyone else in the room.” And you just know that he’ll brush off any of his set-backs as the fault of either Bush or America’s myriad of deficiencies.
The clothes are flying off our Emperor like leaves off oaks in late fall.
But that augurs ill in the short term. For all of us.
And there is a knave inside the fool. We shall see that anonce.
I remain dumbfounded that more Americans cannot or will not see the profound superficiality, pretension, and ugly narcissism of this man, particularly after Nov 2. What a sad commentary on so many of our citizenry.
The secret is that word I used earlier: weakness. Obama is still liked abroad, for the most part. But he is not respected, and he is most definitely not feared. I’m afraid that he is considered a genial but inexperienced naif on the world stage.
And when people see a weak horse and a strong horse…
I reiterate my assertion, made many times earlier, ever since the idiot won the nomination:
“He will make us appreciate Jimmy Carter’s competence.”
> Noam Chomsky and Paul Krugman have never created one job.
Oh, I wouldn’t go quite that far. They’ve gotten many people steady employment explaining what utter and complete dufuses they both are.
> other countries don’t see the purpose in entering into a trade agreement with a country that has a weak economy and declining production.
LOL, sorry, you’re drinking the kool-aid.
a) The USA is the third largest goods producing economy in the world, tied with Germany.
b) We produce something far, far more valuable than goods — we produce IP that is valued the world around. I venture to speculate that, were other nations paying us for the IP their citizenry steals from us — even at pennies on the dollar — there would be a net influx of so much wealth we’d be bankrupting the half of the world that’s not already bankrupt.
Case in point
“Obama has often seemed oblivious to the gaps in his own knowledge”
‘Tis the bliss of ignorance. Those who think they “know it all” obviously don’t know enough to know what they don’t know.
I loved the “unknown unknowns” of Donald Rumsfeld. When someone knows enough to be able to ask “what don’t I know about this”, there is the beginning of knowledge.
After all – consider the automobile. You can ask – “how does it go?” The obvious answer is “turn the key, press the gas pedal”. That’s enough for some people. But when turning the key and pressing the gas pedal doesn’t work, you need to ask a few more questions – if you can figure out what to ask. My husband was in Saudi in the 60s. He said that at that time, it was not uncommon to find cars left by the side of the road because they ran out of gas, and the owner simply didn’t know that that’s what he needed. Obviously, they’re a bit more sophisticated these days, but that’s simply the process of learning. A president has only 4 years (we hope) to expand his knowledge of how the world works.
Obama is so enthralled with the personality cult that is him that he is a lost cause — he is beyond the scope of deprogrammers and intervention specialists. The realization that he is a lame duck with two years left of his first term will only exacerbate things — there’s nothing someone so full of himself likes more than being both, the knight and the damsel, the savior and victim.
Two principles of Machiavelli comes to mind here in this discussion:
1) “…better to be feared than loved…”
2) “…you can get a good estimate of The Prince’s abilities by the abilities of those whom he has around him..”
And we can add the third strike…when The Prince hits the bottom, the vultures descend…
These foreign affairs failings are indicitive of not just Obama’s depth but more so that of his carefully selected staff and their minions. Any leader on a high level mission should simply be following a program that his people have already negotiated and agreed with counterparts on the other government’s team. Internationally nothing is agreed, or rejected, in real time. If the staff can’t convince the boss not to be a cowboy then they are the ones failing. If Obama is smart and managing his team, he should just be there to smile and dance for the cameras.
A couple people have reflected my surprise that people still think Obama is as smart and competent as his press made him out to be in the run up to the 2008 election.
And what surprises me even more is that while 40-some% of people approve of him as President, that apparently a significantly higher percentage of people approve of him as a person, meaning, presumably they see him as a nice, likable or otherwise attractive guy. That’s the real stumper for me because issues aside, I think he has about the most unappealing personality of any politician in a long time.
I’ve been convinced of a couple things since the ascent of Obama that I didn’t realize before.
1. A lot of people, perhaps the majority cannot or will not distinguish between agreeing with someone and thinking someone is smart. While it’s definitely easier to recognize intelligence in someone with whom you agree, it’s not impossible to see it in someone you don’t.
2. Similarly too many people, perhaps again a majority cannot comprehend or are unwilling to concede that someone who disagrees with them is not out-and-out evil.
3. A lot of people, perhaps a majority do not seem to understand that reasonable people may have serious disagreements. While I do honestly and objectively believe that a lot of liberals engage in seriously faulty thinking, to the point of almost being delusional, I do not equate being liberal with being mentally ill, or being evil. I think liberals tend to be naive, but that’s not a moral failing. I’ve talked to some liberals, not a lot unfortunately, that are quite capable of reason and logic. In those cases, I usually find more common ground than things over which we differ, and this is always positive.
4. A lot of people, perhaps a majority become so invested in their heroes, whether they are political leaders, as well of course as other kinds of celebrities that it is impossible to criticize those idols (which is what they end up being) without the devotee taking the criticism as a personal insult. This overidentification, even adulation is incredibly dangerous and is to me (unlike liberalism) an absolute indicator of a defective mind. I’m not talking about issues like family… if someone criticizes my wife, I take it very personally, even if the person is right. That’s different because it really is personal.
But if someone criticizes or insults politicians I like, religious leaders I respect (I’m Catholic, so that would be the Pope, the bishops (some of them anyway), the priests at my local parish etc) or anyone else I hold in esteem, it doesn’t affect me personally and I can either respond with reason or ignore the person as appropriate, and I have no problems criticizing those people myself when appropriate. My self-esteem isn’t wrapped up in Pope Benedict or President Bush or Thomas Sowell, just to name some people I admire, and I can still see them as flawed human beings and evaluate their words and actions objectively.
I guess that’s why I’m seldom shy to discuss politics with anyone and why also I have a penchant for making liberals mouth-foaming enraged, even though I try very hard to be respectful and civil.
To too many people, ironically the non-religious ones the most, politics _is_ religion… and more. And it seems to me that this is only getting worse, gleefully encouraged by those politicians and commentators who feed the ridiculous prejudices I describe above for their own ends, and Obama is one of the worst.
Obama couldn’t tolerate sharp and intelligent people around him. No narcissist can stand the competition and comparison. Remember how pissed off he became in the meeting early on in 2009 when Paul Ryan made him look totally out of his league?
He’s not a mensch. He has low testosterone. (Unlike Sarah who’s loaded with it.)
GWB in the flight suit. Yummm! Flyboy! (Lucky Laura.)
Bambi on the bike in mom jeans. Nerdlinger.
Steve- Yup, i remember; ‘Twas called the HealthCare Summit, an allegedly equal time affair, from which Baraq aka “The Moderator” exempted himself, talking about 35% of the time, because he was the Pres (and you’re not). The Dems, why, they talked about 32%. That left about 27% for Ryan and the rest of the Repubs. Some of the Repubs got their invites a mere 24hrs before the Summit. Thank goodness for Ryan and his preparedness!
Obama’s peripatetic habits reminded me of something but I couldn’t pinpoint it till yesterday, when my son asked, “How many rainbow tours will he have?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zm23PZYdyU
I suspect the point of this world tour was not so much to accomplish anything (as Stark rightly pointed out above, agreements are already reached long before heads of government meet; surely Obama was aware of this?), but rather to change the subject away from the electoral shellacking Obama took.
You can almost hear Axelrod in late October yelling, “Road trip!”
you realize that now things are later in the presidency, your title works with and without an extra space?
Obama fails to impress abroad
Obama fails to impress a broad
ConceptJunkie – I’m on board with all of that. In a previous post, I said that I didn’t mix it up with Obama supporters unless and until it got personal.
One thread that ties together a lot of the points you bring up is the dangerous cult of personality that arose and shrouded Obama like a force-field. There just isn’t a way to penetrate it for most people, because, as it’s said, you can’t reason someone out of something he hasn’t been reasoned into.
Your hero-worship point is spot on. Me namesake, the Hungarian philosopher Aurel Kolnai, wrote a brilliant article in the 1950’s called “Erroneous Conscience,” in which he analyzed the role of conscience in judgment and concluded with this:
“Unlike erroneous or ineffectual conscience proper, Overlain Conscience [idolatry; hero-worship] means an abdication of conscience as moral judgment: as a representative and interpreter of universal moral demands. In developing an overlain conscience, the agent alienates the sovereignty of his conscience, transferring it to a concrete Being, Force, or Will to whose dictate he chooses to submit, or with which he emotionally identifies himself. At the price of his morality’s being a radically falsified and degraded one – a sham morality thrown out of focus, as it were – he may have secured some psychological advantages: a feeling of greater and tangible certitude as to the rightness and meaningfulness of his single actions; a feeling of splitless unity between his conscience and his deepmost emotive self; and the feeling of acting on behalf of, and of being pervaded by, a superior Force which embodies ‘the Good’ or ‘Perfection’ in an objectified and fully real sense of the word.”
Obama the minnow is trying to swim in the big fish pool. The NYT tries hard, but even there he comes off as baitfish. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/world/asia/13prexy.html?hp
This is a must watch: Joe Scarborough says Dem leaders can’t believe Obama’s incomptence:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/11/scarborough-top-dems-in-senate-have-all-told-me-that-obama-has-no-idea-what-hes-doing-video/
It’s not just Fox or crazy conspiracy-minded right wingers like us.
Scarborough says that top Democrats have been complaining about Barry’s incompetence for two years, and we are just hearing about it! Wow, to bad there wasn’t a “journalist” around…
“We produce something far, far more valuable than goods – we produce IP that is valued the world around. ”
It depends on what you mean by “valuable”. If you mean we drive a large number of industries with our intellectual property then you are certainly correct. If you mean creating the ability to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves then not so much.
IP is only valuable in the latter sense when everyone plays fair and pays for that expertise, when they do you are making someone else richer.
For that someone else, or even for someone who doesn’t see boundaries, then that is all well and good. For that person who feeds, clothes, and shelters everyone but them self it isn’t the best deal in the world.
Eventually once that wealth moves elsewhere *they* will be the prime IP creators too – we got there on the backs of a great deal of manufacturing and hard work. Look at the current decline in our educational system – just go read thesis from 30 years ago and find a modern day dissertation in most fields. More often than not the Thesis is MUCH more difficult and advanced (especially in the softer educational markets – most engineering type programs are still running quite well).
“I venture to speculate that, were other nations paying us for the IP their citizenry steals from us – even at pennies on the dollar – there would be a net influx of so much wealth we’d be bankrupting the half of the world that’s not already bankrupt.”
Ah, I see at least on some level you *do* get it!
In terms of real world money it isn’t the most valuable thing out there, in terms of advancing the human race it is. It really should be both, but due to the fact that once knowledge is gained it isn’t “scarce” any more then the idea of “value” becomes hard to define.