OBAMA'S TRIP - A BRITISH SCORECARD - AT 10:12 A.M. ET:  We've written before in this space that some of the most discerning comments about American politics and government come from British journalists.  Here is new proof, should you need it.  Gerald Warner, in The Telegraph, writes a devasting critique of President Obama's recent trip to Europe, and its list of accomplishments:

President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you'd notice.

Ouch.  That is unkind.

On to Nato and the next big objective: to persuade the same European evasion experts that America, Britain and Canada should no longer bear the brunt of the Afghan struggle virtually unassisted. The Old World sucked through its teeth, said that was asking a lot - but, seeing it was Barack, to whom they could refuse nothing, they would graciously accede to his wishes.

So The One retired triumphant, having secured a massive contribution of 5,000 extra troops - all of them non-combatant, of course - which must really have put the wind up the Taliban, at the prospect of 5,000 more infidel cooks and bottle-washers swarming into the less hazardous regions of Afghanistan.

Mr. Warner will not be writing an admiring biography of Barack Obama.  And the president's response to the North Korean missile test, which occurred during the European trip?

President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America's missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.

Finally...

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

COMMENT:  I'm afraid the man has a point, in fact many points.  We can admire the president's wish to engage in negotiation to settle problems, yet still wonder what very tough and brutal adversaries think of his approach, and how they will react.

As I said to a reader in an e-mail this morning, we can only hope that Mr. Obama learns before it's too late, and toughens up.  That's what happened with Kennedy, whose first year in office was a foreign-policy embarrassment, but whose second year, culminating with the Cuban Missile Crisis, was better.

April 11, 2009