OBAMA HAS LOST THE WORLD

After the 2010 elections, it's not exactly news that Obama has lost America. But in a less
public referendum, he also lost the world. Obama's cocktail party tour of the world's
capitals may look impressive on a map, but is irrelevant on a policy level. In less than
two years, the White House has gone from being the center of world leadership to being
irrelevant, from protecting world freedom to serving as a global party planning commit-
tee.

Even the Bush Administration's harshest critics could never have credibly claimed that
George W. Bush was irrelevant. He might have been
hated, pilloried and shouted about-- but he couldn't be
ignored. However Obama can be safely ignored. In-
vited to parties, given the chance to show off his cos-
mopolitan sophisticated by reciting one or two words in
the local lingo, read off a teleprompter, along with
some cant about the need for everyone to pull together
and make the world a better place, and then dismissed
for the rest of the evening.

As a world leader, he makes a passable party guest. He

has a broad smile, brings along his own gifts and is fa-
mous in the way that celebrities, rather than prime min-
isters and presidents are famous. On an invitation list,
he is more Bono than Sarkozy, Leonardo DiCaprio not
Putin. You don't invite him to talk turkey, not even on Thanksgiving. He's just one of
those famous people with a passing interest in politics who gets good media attention,
but who has nothing worthwhile to say.

The only countries who take Obama seriously, are the ones who have to. The leaders of
Great Britain, Israel and Japan-- who have tied their countries to an enduring alliance
with America based on mutual interests and values, only to discover that the latest fel-
low to sit behind the Oval Office desk no longer shares those values and couldn't give
less of a damn about American interests. It's no wonder that European leaders ignore
him as much as possible. Or that Netanyahu visited America, while Obama was abroad.
Or that Japanese politics have become dangerously unstable.

On the enemy side, the growing aggressiveness of China, North Korea, Iran, Hezbollah
and Al Qaeda can all be attributed to the global consensus that no one is at home in the
White House.And if no one is at home in the White House, then that's a perfect time to
slap the big boy around the yard. China is doing it economically, the rest are doing it
militarily. They're all on board with Obama's Post-American vision of the world. But
unlike him and most liberals, they have a clear understanding of what that means. The
America of some years back, which actually intimidated Libyan dictator Khaddafi into
giving up his nuclear program, without lifting a hand against him is long gone. So is the
Cedar Revolution. Syria and Iran are back in charge in Lebanon. And in Afghanistan, the
Taliban are laughing at our soft power outreach efforts.

Obama's soft power approach emphasizes the 'soft' and forgets the 'power'. It neglects
even Clinton era understandings about the role of America in the world, and reverts in-
stead to a Carter era sense of guilt that bleeds into hostility toward American interests
and allies. While the rest of the world puts their own interests first, they act like a cog in
some imaginary global community, turning and turning toward the distant horizon of in-
ternational brotherhood. While China, Russia and most of the world walk down their
backs and up their jellyfish spines, laughing all the way. And America's allies gird them-
selves and prepare for the worst.

From the first, this administration has curried favor with America's enemies by betraying
and humiliating its allies. But these hideous acts of
moral cowardice have not won Obama the approval of
America's enemies. Only their contempt. And a Nobel
Peace Prize from a committee of elderly left wing
Swedes, awarded not for any accomplishment, but for
the lack thereof. For being a man without a country, a
leader without a spine and a representative of America
who gives no thought for the interests of that country.

Now that the Koreas stand on the brink of war, Iran

continues its drive toward a nuclear bomb, Al Qaeda is
going global, Hezbollah is on the verge of taking
Lebanon and Mexico is on the verge of imploding--
the impact of America's absence on the global stage is
all too clear. The countless cocktail parties and toasts have not changed the world. All
they've done is highlighted the transition of the White House from world leadership to
global party guest. Trip after trip has ended in photo ops and policy failures. Instead
Obama is stuck dumpster diving into the futile quest for a Palestinian state, not because
such an entity will make the world any better, but because it will make him look good.

Obama has no mandate at home, and he has even less of one abroad. America's enemies
do not fear him. Only our allies do. Kim Jong Il does not sit up nights worrying what
Obama will do. Because the consensus in North Korea, Iran and the rest of the world is
that the sea will rise, the sun will set and Obama will do nothing. Except maybe write a
strongly worded letter, offset by some quiet backchannel diplomacy from his coterie of
international left wing stooges reassuring the offender that, "No, Barry really isn't mad at
you. He's just concerned. Really, really concerned."

Liberal pundits mock the rough and ready style of conservatives like Reagan, Bush or
Palin in world affairs, but what they fail to realize is that the over-educated naivete,
trendy cosmopolitanism and buzzword rich approach of a Kerry or Obama come off as
laughably pathetic on the world stage. Republicans might be hated, but they can't be ig-
nored. Democrats on the other hand are catspaws and pawns, fools who are so sure of
their cleverness and determined to embrace every culture in the way that only the gradu-
ates of Ivy League institutions can, that any Third World vendor could twirl them around
his fingers.

World leaders are rarely liked, but effective ones are respected. And effective world
leaders don't lead with appeasement, don't compromise before the other side has even
made an offer and negotiate on behalf of their country, rather than some intangible
global consensus. They understand that they represent a country, not a popularity con-
test. They don't travel abroad to be adored or be greeted with parades and gifts, but to
achieve tangible results on specific issues. To do otherwise is not to be a world leader,
but a celebrity who happens to have picked up a big title along the way.

To be a proper American president on the world stage, means choosing to be respected,

rather than liked. Obama always chooses to be liked, rather than respected. Because re-
spect comes from accomplishment and character, while 'liking' is a function of appear-
ance and image. Aiming to be 'liked' is playing to Obama's strengths. But being liked is
irrelevant outside of an afterschool special. World affairs is not a networking seminar, it
is a negotiation between countries who have billions of dollars and millions of lives on
the line. And Obama has no idea how to play that game. Like the kid who never fit in
anywhere, he's still trying to be liked. And he's willing to sell out American interests and
allies to get the cool UN kids to like him.

Unfortunately Obama's irrelevance is also America's irrelevance. A Republican House of

Representatives cannot do what Obama should be do-
ing. And any attempt to show strength gets shouted
down by the liberal punditocracy as treason and un-
dermining the White House. As if anyone, anywhere
could undermine Obama internationally as much as he
undermines himself. The same liberals who consid-
ered Ted Kennedy's treasonous offer of cooperation
with the Soviet Union or Kerry's trip to Latin Ameri-
can Marxist terrorists to be acts of courage, damn Republicans who supported allies in
Ecuador and Israel as traitors. And so Obama must have a free hand to do it all on his
own. To do what Kennedy or Kerry could have only dreamed of.
Obama has lost the world. He has made the country that he claims to represent into a
shadow of its former strength and glory. And his irrelevance endangers American lives.
Not just those of soldiers in war zones, laboring under restrictive Rules of Engagement,
written so as not to offend Muslims. Not just those of Americans at risk for domestic ter-
rorism under an Attorney General who sympathizes with terrorists, more than with
Americans. But to everyone living in a world where countries like North Korea and Iran
feel free to do what they want, where our economic rivals such as Russia and China ad-
vance their interests and their espionage, and where terrorists across the Muslim world
grow in boldness and number because they have no one left to fear anymore. In America
and around the world-- Barack Hussein Obama endangers us all.