Jay Nordlinger sums it up

Jay Nordlinger, senior editor at National Review:

I thought Barack Obama would be a poor and troublesome president. Did I think he would yuk it up with Hugo Chávez, smirk with Daniel Ortega about the Bay of Pigs, turn his wrath on a Central American country trying to follow its constitution, denounce President Bush abroad, bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, endorse a radical Middle Eastern view of how Israel came into being, knock Western countries that try to protect Muslim girls from unwanted shrouding, invite the Iranian regime to our Fourth of July parties, stay essentially mute in the face of counterrevolution in Iran, squeeze and panic Israel, cold-shoulder the Cuban democrats in order to warm to the Cuban dictatorship, scrap missile defense in Eastern Europe, and refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama — in addition to his attempts to have government eat great portions of American society? No, I did not. You?

P.S. When President Ford, at the encouragement of Secretary Kissinger, refused to meet with Solzhenitsyn, conservatives thought this was a pretty rotten move and posture. I hope these same conservatives, and their heirs, see what President Obama’s snubbing of the Dalai Lama means today.

P.P.S. When President Obama does something — even a small something — like turn off the "news ticker" outside the American interests section in Havana, he tries to make nice with oppressors. Sometimes in life you have to choose: whether to make nice with the oppressors or with the oppressed. It’s hard to do both.

P.P.P.S. Will Obama’s moves pay off? Will Russia join arms with us against nuclearizing mullahs, or will the Cuban dictatorship reduce its tortures in the prison cells? I’m not sure the ends are really the point, with the Obama crowd at large. I think the main point may be not to upset regimes in power: and therefore show that America can "get along" with the world, unlike under that crude, narrow, swaggering, simplistic rancher from Texas.

Get along or go along.

Nordlinger is a great and faithful rememberer of those who suffer under authoritarian regimes, and writes frequently about political prisoners in places like Cuba and China. I wish someone like him had the President's ear.

And as to his primary point -- Obama's performance in office as compared even to conservatives' low expectations -- I can't help but agree. Obama's work experience (and lack thereof), voting record, and past associations showed that he was a committed liberal and not the centrist he and his supporters claimed him to be. It was clear too that in his thinking Obama would be prone to all of the left-liberal bad habits, including the tendency to see the federal government as the solution to all problems; the impulse to regard international conflict as ultimately the fault of the U.S.; and naivete about the desires of hostile nations. But I held out hope that he had enough political sense to do a little Clintonian triangulation now and then, and to get the easy calls right. Jay's litany suggests that my hope was ill-founded.

Again, it's a good thing the Obama is filled with super-geniuses, or else I'd be worried.