Right to Opine

At the G-20 meetings, President Obama is proving quite definitively before an international audience that he is tone deaf.

[H]is policies, contentious at home, have proved contentious overseas as well, and he faced stiff challenges during the Group of 20 gathering in Seoul, South Korea, from the leaders of China, Britain, Germany and Brazil over currency policy and his contention that the United States could pump money into its economy to stimulate growth before concentrating on reducing the deficit.

Of course these countries are upset. They own a lot of our debt, and Obama’s policies are devaluing their investment. They have every right to be contentious—it’s their money Obama is wasting.

”Part of the reason that sometimes it seems as if the United States is attracting some dissent is because we’re initiating ideas,” the president said

This would be funny if he didn’t truly believe it. Republicans—and conservatives in general—are frequently portrayed by liberals and the media (I know, often one and the same) as provincial rubes, ignorant of and uninterested in the “outside world.” With this one statement Obama gives the lie to that caricature. Other nations are criticizing his policies not because they’re somehow new or innovative, but because they have been tried elsewhere—and found lacking. Obama, by failing to acknowledge the recent history of western Europe, demonstrates that it is he who is willfully ignorant of reality. While other nations are backing away from the precipice of huge government deficit spending, he is rushing America headlong over the cliff.

When a reporter asked what kind of complaints he was hearing from fellow leaders, Mr. Obama laughed it off, asking, “What about compliments?” As to whether the elections at home have weakened him overseas, he served up a one-word answer: No.

His response was only natural, because in his hubris and utter narcissism he simply can’t acknowledge the true failures of his administration or the fact that the same Europeans who once feted him after his presidential campaign speech in Germany have now turned against him because of his policies. The truth is that America’s position in the world is much weaker under Obama—not because other nations are reluctant in principal to follow America’s lead, but because they are unwilling to follow where he is leading.