By Rich Galen
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Most Presidents of the United States love going on an
international trip. You get to fly on Air Force One. You get to travel around
in The Beast that was flown over for your benefit. You get to stay in the
biggest suite in a Western-style hotel. There are about 300 staffers from the
White House and various Executive Branch agencies who have traveled ahead of
you or with you to make sure your every whim is appropriately dealt with.
And, you get to meet with foreign leaders to remind them
that, as Chevy Chase might have said on the old Saturday Night Live: "I'm
the President of the United States … and you're not."
Essentially, the bubble in which Presidents live while
they are in Washington, DC simply picks up and moves to where ever they need
to/want to go.
Presidents generally get good marks when they're
overseas. It's like that old saying that I can say whatever I want about my
family, but if you say the same thing about my family you'll have a fight on
your hands.
But, if the rule "Politics stops at the border"
was ever true, it isn't any more. In 2009, CBS News reported that:
Senate
Democratic leader Harry Reid called President Bush "a loser" during a
civics discussion with a group of teenagers at a high school [in Nevada].
Bush was in Europe at the time.
No one has called President Barack Obama a loser during
his recently concluded trip to Europe but it would be hard to find a reason to
celebrate any accomplishments.
The National Journal's Michael Hirsh - not exactly the go-to-guy
of American Conservatives - wrote:
There
were the snarky words from Vladimir Putin, who expressed an almost Soviet-esque
distance from Washington in his views about Syria. 'Of course our opinions do
not coincide, the Russian leader said bluntly.
There was the
coded warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel about spying on friends, and her
and Obama's continuing frostiness over the issue of economic stimulus versus
austerity.
Above
all, there was Obama's vague attempt at the Brandenburg Gate to capture some
wisp of his past glory by pledging vague plans to cut nuclear arms and an even
vaguer concept of 'peace with justice.'
The EU countries' economies are foundering. According to
Reuters "Joblessness in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent
in April." And among Europeans under 25, unemployment ranges as high as 50
percent in Greece and Spain and is well into double figures just about
everywhere.
That was a bouquet compared to the review Obama got from
a column in the U.K. Telegraph which described the President's Berlin speech
thus:
Barack
Obama bombs in Berlin: a weak, underwhelming address from a floundering
president
Whoa! Check, please!
Analyst Nile Gardiner wrote:
Barack
Obama underscored again why he is no JFK or Ronald Reagan. In front of the
Brandenburg Gate, Obama sounded more like the president of the European
Commission than the leader of the free world.
Left or Right. U.S. or U.K. Barack Obama got few good
marks from anyone from anywhere during this trip.
On top of all that, President Obama kept referring to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British equivalent of our Treasury Secretary)
as Jeffery Osborne.
His name is George. George Osborne.
Imagine the projectile tears of derisive laughter among
the MSNBC crowd if George W. had done that?
As we discussed earlier in the week, the President's
standing among the American people is sagging under the growing weight of
controversies. The aforementioned NBC News team looked into the numbers and
found this:
The most
pronounced shift in CNN's numbers over the last three weeks came among
independent voters. Obama's approval vs. disapproval rating among independents
went from 47 - 49 in mid-May to 37 - 61 in the most recent CNN/ORC poll.
According to the calculator app on my iPad that means
that among independents Obama's rating has gone from -1 to -24 in just a month.
Maybe the answer for Obama is to join Justin Bieber on a
trip into space aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket.
They can compare notes on the unfairness of it all.
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