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WSJ Slams Obama: 'Most Provincial' President, Tells World 'Drop Dead'
Thursday, July 24, 2014 07:53 AM
By: Melanie Batley
President Barack Obama is the "most provincial U.S. president in at least a century" and despite being the leader of the free world he is ignoring major international crises that will only escalate further in the final two years of his presidency, the Wall Street Journal said.
In an editorial written by Daniel Henninger under a headline 'Obama To World: Drop Dead', the Journal lambastes the president for his weak response toward Russia following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. It criticizes him for ignoring multiple escalating conflicts throughout the world, instead focusing on fundraising and domestic Democratic politics.
"As the world burns, the president spent this week fiddling at fundraisers in the living rooms of five Democratic Party fat cats in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. As White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri famously explained, changing the president's fundraising schedule 'can have the unintended consequence of unduly alarming the American people or creating a false sense of crisis,'" Henninger wrote.
In addition to criticizing Obama for his vague and weak response toward Russia, Henninger mentions that the president has been virtually flaccid on the escalating violence between Israel and Hamas. Meanwhile, he appears to be ignoring the takeover of ISIS in Iraq and its cleansing of Christians, not to mention the civil war in Syria, and the terrorist activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria.
"Here's what it means. It means that 'the situation,' as the White House routinely euphemizes all the world's chaos, is going to get worse. It means in the next two years many more people are going to die, and not necessarily in the places where they are dying now. Why should it stop?"
"How, then, to explain someone who claims he can run the country and a troubled world out of his back pocket while he flies from fundraiser to fundraiser? Barack Obama is the most provincial U.S. president in at least a century."
He added that Obama has "no interest" beyond consolidating political and electoral power inside the U.S. "Not even the White House of Lyndon Johnson, the ultimate pol, was so purely politicized," he wrote.
"The fundraising is a frantic effort to protect this new Democratic voter machine. The world doesn't vote, so the world doesn't matter. Unless, of course, the American people in November decide that a world defined by events like Flight 17 does matter," he concluded.
The Journal's view of the president's performance appears to be in keeping with the views of the American people. The latest Fox News poll showed that 56 percent of people disapprove of his performance on foreign policy, compared to 36 percent who approve.
Earlier this month, a Quinnipiac University poll found that voters gave the president the worst grade ever on foreign policy, with a disapproval rating of 52 percent. Just 40 percent of those surveyed approved of his approach to foreign affairs.
And a June WSJ/ NBC poll found that Obama had a 57 percent disapproval rating for his handling of foreign policy.
Meanwhile, a CNN poll this week found the president's approval rating—and specifically, views on his ability to manage the government—stands at 42 percent, in keeping with most major national poll taken in the last six months.
