Yup, it's the failed Obama presidency, as described by Bret Stephens on the Wall Street Journal editorial page:
Obama's Charm Isn't Working Wonders Abroad
Barack Obama has now been president for 21 days, following an inauguration that was supposed to have pressed the reset button on America's relations with the wider world and ushered in a new period of global cooperation against common threats. Here's what pressing reset has accomplished so far:
(What follows is a completely unsurprising list of non-swooning reactions from Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, and "the Arab street.")
And so it goes....
Three weeks and the jury is in: he's already a foreign policy failure.
Foreign enemies are testing a new president -- appalling! This would never have happened if he weren't a Democrat! Foreign enemies don't dare use the beginning of a president's term to probe for weaknesses if the president is a Republican, right?
Stephens was expecting everything to be hearts and flowers already? Right-wingers clearly take the notion of Obama as "The One," the magical wand-waving transformer of everything, a hell of a lot more seriously than do the people who are supposed to believe he's "The One," namely liberals and Democrats. We know the changes he's trying to make are going to take time. We know his overtures are frequently going to be rebuffed. (Kim Jong-Il obviously isn't going to come around faster than John Boehner.) Come on, Bret -- three weeks?
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