I'm sure our State Department assumed that their work was done when they sent out notices to all the members of the UN in January 2009 informing them that Barack Obama was now the United States President.
What more would they need to do when we were all hoped up on change, with the world was ecstatic that not-Bush had been elected? The world would love us again! Enemies would be friends and friends would be more willing to be led from behind!
Hell, President Obama even thought he could afford to put his former bitter political foe, Hillary Clinton, in charge of the State Department! What harm could she do when there is nothing she needs to do?
And being able to see all of her communications to keep her in line would be a smart move, no? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?
Wait. What? She effed up everything she touched (but boy did she fly a lot of miles!), convinced even poor countries to donate to her foundation, and she used a private email account and had her own personal private intelligence group reporting to her?
Well, perhaps that wasn't as brilliant as it was imagined.
And even the foreign environment isn't what they imagined it would be after 6 years of the soothing balms of hope and change healing our relations with a world bitter about that cowboy George W. Bush.
Even that darling of the American Left--Hugo-built Venezuela--is all pissed off at us:
With more than a million Twitter followers and no diplomatic experience, the favorite daughter of Venezuela's late leader Hugo Chavez made her debut Wednesday as her country's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.
The occasion: A "Day of Solidarity" where Syria, Russia and others lined up to slam the United States for its recent sanctions against seven senior officials of the socialist country.
I know she's new, but didn't somebody pass along that January 2009 cable from Foggy Bottom to her?
Maybe just being there wasn't the first and only thing President Obama needed to do to protect our interests in the world--although he picked a bad target for foreign policy activism by thinking a transformative nuclear deal with Iran would be the place to make his mark.
UPDATE: Europe, too, is not feeling the love (Yeah, that Victory Column speech in Germany just used your frenzied fanboys--and girls--as mere props for his own benefit):
Recent headlines chronicling the breakdown in U.S.-Israeli affairs and the personal loathing between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have overshadowed the continuing ructions in Washington’s relations with its traditional allies in Europe.
Yeah, I've blogged about a bunch of the examples of President Obama just not being that into them--including his snubbing of NATO's envoy even as Russia mauls Ukraine and our NATO allies look for reassurance that they won't be next.
And sure, just like our Arab friends, many in Europe may delight in taking those pesky Jews down a notch. But perhaps they might want to consider what our president would do to them if he'd screw over a close ally like Israel.
Yeah, maybe that "cowboy" Bush wasn't so bad, after all.
Maybe strained relations are more about Europe than us, anyway.
When President Obama pivoted to Asia, it was really a pivot away from the Middle East and in a bit of collateral damage, from Europe too, which he didn't think needed us any more what with that glorious Hillary-engineered "reset."
I remain so grateful that President Obama has "restored" our relations with so much of the world!
UPDATE: In case you didn't "read it all" as the saying goes, let me quote the conclusion:
Beyond the foreign policy consequences of how the president has mismanaged relations with the continent, a surfeit of irony is also at work. His promise to repair ties that were damaged by the acrimony over the Iraq War guaranteed him euphoric welcomes in Berlin in July 2008 and in Prague the following spring. Speaking before a massive crowd assembled in Berlin’s “Tiergarten” (speech text here; video here), he grandly vowed to “remake the world once again,” this time in a way that allies would “listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.” That pledge is now so yesterday that Mrs. Merkel is reportedly longing for the days of George W. Bush.
It would be deliciously humorous if our president wasn't wrecking our foreign policy.
