SAUDI ACADEMIC: OBAMA TALKS TOO MUCH

Go figure. The Obama strategy of going overseas to deride his own country while groveling to others doesn't seem to be working. The Muslim world appears to be getting tired of seeing Obama on television too. Speaking ill of your own country while in other countries may get you applause but it certainly doesn't garner respect.

Very interesting piece in the WSJ by Fouad Ajami:

'He talks too much," a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America's 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory.

He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth.

He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest.

Making the case with very tangible examples, Ajami closes with a paragraph that encapsulates Obama's dilemma perfectly:

The laws of gravity, the weight of history and of precedent, have caught up with the Obama presidency. We are beyond stirring speeches. The novelty of the Obama approach, and the Obama persona, has worn off. There is a whole American diplomatic tradition to draw upon—engagements made, wisdom acquired in the course of decades, and, yes, accounts to be settled with rogues and tyrannies. They might yet help this administration find its way out of a labyrinth of its own making.

Read the WHOLE THING.

There are so many reasons why I believe Obama RETURNED THE BUST of Winston Churchill to Great Britain. Relative to this piece by Ajami, I think this Churchill quote just about says it all:

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

h/t to HA