Where are the Americans?

This makes me long for the days of 'That idiot Bush'. [Link]

“Where the Americans?” That’s the sixty-four-dollar question. Chaos in Egypt: “Where are the Americans?” Gadaffi in Libya: “Where are the Americans?” Devastation in Japan: “Where are the Americans?” I am in London for a few days. At a dinner party last night, that was once again the question: “Where are the Americans?” On Tuesday, U.S. debt jumped $72 billion — in one day. What are the Americans doing about it? President Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury insisted that Congress raise the debt limit so that the government could borrow more. “Where are the Americans?” President Obama has managed the impossible-seeming feat of making a President of France appear as decisive and effective.  Nicolas Sarkozy was the first Western leader to recognize the Libyan opposition. “Where are the Americans?”

Many months ago, I wondered in the space whether Obama’s behavior betoken incompetence or malevolence (noting, however, that the “or” need not be exclusive: he might e both incompetent andmalevolent). On the domestic front, Obama’s activity is marked by arrogance, self-absorption, and policies that increase the power of government at the expense of local or individual initiative. In foreign affairs, his behavior is marked by contempt for America and moral paralysis  —

“Weakness, incoherence, drift, indecision,” observes John Hinderaker, are “the hallmarks of the Obama administration.” The community organizer and junior Senator is simply out of his depth.

Obama had not been in office long before comparisons with Jimmy “misery index” Carter began cropping up. We now know that a reprise of that disastrous administration would be, as Glenn Reynolds has frequently observed, the best-case scenario. “Where are the Americans?” Conrad Black had the best analogy: looking for Obama is like the children’s game “Where’s Waldo?”  The difference is that when your little one actually finds the dopey-looking fellow with the striped shirt, spectacles, and sock-like hat, he’s won the game. The philosopher Rudolph Canap used to make fun of Heidegger for treating the word “nothing” as a transitive verb: “das Nichts nichtet,”  “nothing noths,” he was fond of saying “nothing,” that is to say , begets vacancy.  Carnap thought it was nonsense.  Barack Obama shows that it is brute political reality.  Barack Obama: President Nothing.