Obama’s Asia Trip Serving Up Peking Lame Duck

Lame Duck Swims To Asia

 

 

 

” If President Barack Obama expects to escape the spate of brutal post-election news by traveling 6,000 miles and 12 time zones to Asia, he’s in for a surprise.

  Regional players are taking stock of whether the U.S. president once seen as a global rock star will now have diminished heft on the world stage, and some are delivering their verdict well ahead of his arrival Monday for an eight-day trip to China, Burma and Australia.

  Global Times, an English-language newspaper published by China’s state-run People’s Daily, has carried two withering editorials in recent days.

“ The lame-duck president will be further crippled” in the wake of a GOP victory, the newspaper warned in one before the voting was complete. “He has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. US society has grown tired of his banality.”

“ This will be the most recent manifestation of America’s weakness and they will figure that into their deliberation,” said Jon Hunstman, a Republican who served as U.S. Ambassador to China under Obama and pointed to Chinese adeptness at sizing up power. “They will see it through that prism and consider whether this president still has the swat to actually get anything done.” “

 

Politico

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Saturday Steyn

Obama’s Lead From Behind Method Results In A

“Coalition of the Unwilling”

 

 

 

 

” I was overseas when Obama gave his momentous Isis address, but figured I could pretty much guess how things would go. Despite being the greatest orator of the last thousand years, he’s a complete bust at selling anything but himself, as comprehensively demonstrated in his first couple of years: see his rhetorical efforts on behalf of ObamaCare, or Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley, or Chicago’s Olympics bid. When it comes to war, he suffers from an additional burden: before he can persuade anybody else, he first has to persuade himself. And he can’t do it. So he gave the usual listless performance of a surly actor who resents the part he’s been given. It’s not just the accumulation of equivocations and qualifications – the “Islamic State” is not Islamic, our war with them is not a war, there’ll be no boots on the ground except the exotic footwear of a vast unspecified coalition – but something more basic: What he mainly communicates is that he doesn’t mean it.

  That’s what the jihadist militias now in control of Tripoli understood about his “leading from behind”. That’s what Putin grasped about Obama’s “red line” in Syria. And that’s what any Isis member who took time out of his beheading schedule to watch the President on CNN International will have taken away from this week’s speech.

  As for the “coalition”, they seem to intuit that, with a leader leading from this far behind, you want to stand even further back. From the mellifluously named Jacaranda FM:

  Turkey will refuse to allow a US-led coalition to attack jihadists in neighboring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday.

So much for the only Nato member to border Isis. What of the other Atlantic allies?

  Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists on Friday that Germany will not take part in US-led air strikes against Islamic extremists Isis in Syria. “

 

 

Saturday’s must read

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Judge Jeanine Pirro – Opening Statement – 3.30.14

Putin Vs Obama – America Vs Russia – Ukraine

 

 

 

 

—

Russians Laugh Off Obama’s Sanctions … Poke Fun On Twitter

Russian Deputy PM Laughs At Obama’s Sanctions

 

 

 

” Russia’s deputy prime minister laughed off President Obama’s sanction against him today  asking “Comrade @BarackObama” if “some prankster” came up with the list.

  The Obama administration hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions today as punishment for Russia’s support of Crimea’s referendum. Among them: aides to President Vladimir Putin, a top government official, senior lawmakers, Crimean officials, the ousted president of Ukraine, and a Ukrainian politician and businessman allegedly tied to violence against protesters in Kiev.

  It remains to be seen whether the sanctions will dissuade Russia from annexing Crimea, but one an early clue that they will not be effective came just hours later when President Putin signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state, perhaps an early step towards annexation.

  U.S. official have warned of additional sanctions for Russian action, hoping it will deter Russia from any further aggression towards Ukraine, but it didn’t appear to upset the often outspoke Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.”

 

 

Continue reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

From Sleeping Giant to Paper Tiger

Jennifer  Rubin 

   ” During the entire Obama term the conservative foreign policy community has made a simple argument: If the United States doesn’t lead and signals weakness, bad things will happen. And now here we are. Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies sent me a pithy e-mail this morning: “It’s essential that our allies and our enemies — and those who fall in between — understand that actions carry consequences. . . . [Middle East scholar] Bernard Lewis has said many times that people around the world should view America as the best friend you can have — and the most dangerous enemy. But at the least, it is vital that the opposite impression not be conveyed: That America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” “