What is the Sound of Styrofoam Columns Collapsing?

I suppose that I really don’t need to remind any of you of all the triumph of the Dauphin de Chicago that we endured during 2008.  In fact, I don’t want to go there any more.  I am going to mention that aspirational Nobel Peace Prize from a year later.   And, okay, one more inkle of all that 2008 hoopla in Germany when Der Speigel asked “Where is Germany’s Obama”?   Do you honestly think they’d really ask that question now and want an answer?

How the worm has turned and the facades have fallen.  The one area where Obama was supposed to excel was in the world forum.  If the world was expecting something different, they are sure realizing they didn’t get it.  But just as in 2008,  they trumped up Obama into some mythological sun god shining wisdom upon the world, we’re now seeing every one peel the paint off styrofoam and skin.  What is it about the Villagers?

Do they all really want to write heroic epics and tragic endings rather than just report the damned news?

This tidbit is from Politico.  Well, let’s just say I’m going to start with Politico. There will be more coming than this headline:   ‘View from Middle East: President Obama is a problem’. A problem?  Isn’t that a little different tale than  alt that “this is the one we’ve been waiting for” spin a few years ago?

He was supposed to be different. His personal identity, his momentum, his charisma and his promise of a fresh start would fundamentally alter America’s relations with the Muslim world and settle one of its bitterest grievances.

Two years later, he has managed to forge surprising unanimity on at least one topic: Barack Obama. A visit here finds both Israelis and Palestinians blame him for the current stalemate — just as they blame one another.

Instead of becoming a heady triumph of his diplomatic skill and special insight, Obama’s peace process is viewed almost universally in Israel as a mistake-riddled fantasy. And far from becoming the transcendent figure in a centuries-old drama, Obama has become just another frustrated player on a hardened Mideast landscape.

…

The political peace process to which Obama committed so much energy is considered a failure so far. And in the world’s most pro-American state, the public and its leaders have lost any faith in Obama and — increasingly — even in the notion of a politically negotiated peace.

Even those who still believe in the process that Obama has championed view his conduct as a deeply unfunny comedy of errors.

“He’s like rain,” said a top Israeli official involved in diplomacy with the U.S., speaking of Obama’s role in negotiations. “You can do all kinds of things to cope with it.”

Some fret that not only has Obama failed to move the process forward but he and his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts may have dealt it a setback that will leave it worse off than when they began.

Obama has moved from the man that can do nothing wrong to the man that cannot do anything right.  His failures since the mid term  “shellacking” have been failure on the world stage.   China, South Korea, Brazil, and now both Israel and The Palestine Authority are telling unfavorable tales.

How could any one be less respected than a President who thinks massaging the shoulders of a German Chancellor is acceptable behavior?

The Politico narrative is a long one and is peppered with items like this.

But the American president has been diminished, even in an era without active hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. His demands on the parties appear to shrink each month, with the path to a grand peace settlement narrowing to the vanishing point. The lack of Israeli faith in him and his process has them using the talks to extract more tangible security assurances — the jets. And though America remains beloved, Obama is about as popular here as he is in Oklahoma. A Jerusalem Post poll in May found 9 percent of Israelis consider Obama “pro-Israel,” while 48 percent say he’s “pro-Palestinian.”
Other polling in Israel shows a growing gap between aspirations for peace and the faith that it can happen. One survey last month found that 72 percent of Israelis favor negotiations, while only 33 percent think they can bear fruit. (Palestinians show a smaller gap, primarily because a smaller majority favors negotiations.)

Obama has resisted advisers’ suggestions that he travel to Israel or speak directly to Israelis as he has to Muslims in Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia.

“Israelis really hate Obama’s guts,” said Shmuel Rosner, a columnist for two leading Israeli newspapers. “We used to trust Americans to act like Americans, and this guy is like a European leader.”

Many senior Israeli leaders have concluded that Hillary Clinton and John McCain were right about Obama’s naiveté and inexperience.

So, it may be expected that Israel misses some cowboy swagger and doesn’t want any more “European-style Leaders”.  The article does spend most of its virtual ink on the I side of the I/P equation.  As we know from experience, any conversation about that topic tends to escalate into more than discussion; even among friends. There’s just one P in there to 9 I’s.  Where’s the balance in that?  Has every one in the U.S. bought into the new paradigm of what “fair and balanced” represents?

But, Politico isn’t the only one in the process of toppling the Styrofoam columns today. WAPO’s Jackson Diehl also examines Obama’s Foreign Policy today and suggests Obama may need an update . He timetrips back to the 80s as a way to talk about the new START treaty process. Diehl looks for clues in that, the I/P negotiations,  and the recent tour of Asia’s nascent democracies.  The bottom line is not flattering.  Diehl concludes that Obama is stuck on the 80s.  (Let’s hope that doesn’t include the Presidential taste in hairstyles and clothing.)