The New Republic: Obama Has No Magic Overseas

And not much left domestically, MC might add. We were struck by the always readable if sometimes predictable Leon Wieseltier's "Washington Diarist" back page ruminations in the most recent issue of The New Republic.

His point of departure is the shameful absence of Obama from the world's celebration in Berlin on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. His observations, more broadly, acutely highlight the emptiness of so much of this administration's approach to the world and foreign policy issues. Click on the title of this post to read Wieseltier's whole article. MC found the following excerpt deadly:

"Liberals no longer remember that anti-communism was once a glory of liberalism. The president is so busy breaking new ground in foreign policy that he may not see that the ground of his foreign policy is broken. His renunciation of idealism has brought none of the rewards of realism. Conflicts that were supposed to be transformed by his magic are immune to his magic. He has no magic. There is no magic. His trip to China, where the subject of human rights was “raised,” has shown this again. When he gets back, perhaps he will meet with the Dalai Lama, but not for the purpose of “strategic reassurance.” That blessing is reserved for Hu Jintao. It makes sense that the man who refused to meet with the Dalai Lama did not make it to Berlin."