Reality's a Bitch

The Washington Times has published a scathing criticism of Barack Obama's presidency, particularly in regards to foreign policy. Wesley Pruyden compares Obama's presidency to the TV show West Wing, and not favorably. The finale is the most stinging passage:

There are signs that the Europeans, so eager only a year ago to march to the music of the piper from Hyde Park, are sobering up like the millions of independent voters who have stepped out of the parade in America. The buzz about Barack Obama at international conferences is no longer about how strong and artful he is in the presidential role, but how naive and artless reality has revealed him to be. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is said to have told confidants that he thinks the American president is "weak."

Clark Judge, a recent delegate to the annual Global Security Review conference in Geneva, sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, was surprised by the emerging "wide skepticism" of the president. "The impression emerged for me," he says, "that Mr. Obama's riveting rhetoric is in danger of turning from a plus to a minus." One former foreign minister scorns the president's "pointless rhetoric, no matter how elegantly expressed."

Reality is an unforgiving teacher, and inevitably grades on a steep curve. Mr. Obama imagined last year that he was auditioning to replace Martin Sheen on the television serial "West Wing." He's learning better now.

[That remains to be seen, Mr. Pruden.]