President Obama is following the advice of that great philosopher Woody Allen, who once said that “eighty percent of success is showing up.” In health care legislation, foreign relations and, now, the Olympics, Obama believes his very presence is enough to bend the world to his whim.
But even Allen allowed for 20% of something else. I’m guessing good ideas and effort.
The decision by the International Olympic Committee must have particularly stung. On behalf of his hometown of Chicago, which had invested $50 million in its bid, Obama traveled halfway around the world to swoon IOC officials in Copenhagen.
With his wife, Michelle, in tow, Obama beseeched the scandal-ridden Olympic bureaucracy, the first time ever that an American president had met personally with the body.
Facing a 26-year-high unemployment rate of 9.8% here at home, the White House ought to have done some homework before sending the president off on one knee, putting not only his personal reputation on the line, but the prestige of his nation. Yet when voting time came, the entreaties of the president who has been widely lauded for “restoring the moral stature” of a country’s whose reputation was supposedly tarnished by the policies of his “unilateralist” and “bullying” predecessor fell on deaf ears. The Windy City finished dead last, eliminated in the first round. A further indignity: the president was still aboard Air Force One flying back home when he received the bad news. Chalk this up as yet another instance of the administration’s elementary incompetence.
Anita DeFrantz, an American IOC member, was astonished that the grace embodied by the first couple wasn’t enough to win over the Olympic bureaucracy. “I hate the fact that these elegant people were here and then our country got treated that way,” she complained. The “elegance” of Obama was supposedly one of his most bankable traits. Yet so far, Obama’s high global approval ratings, while satisfying for his ego, have yet to redound to the nation’s benefit.
That the president’s personal popularity and persuasive capabilities will work wonders in solving the world’s problems is a conceit fundamental to this administration’s strategic calculus. Yet the Olympics debacle is just the latest casualty of the president’s hubris. Despite their love of Obama, our European allies have yet to step up to the plate in Afghanistan, where the very success of the mission now hangs in the balance.
The Russians are still occupying parts of Georgia, and neither they nor the Chinese have proven particularly helpful in leveling sanctions on Iran, whose leaders have also proven impervious to Obama’s charisma.
Nor have Obama’s personal approval ratings translated into domestic policy accomplishments. Nine months into his stewardship, the only success to which Obama can point is the stimulus bill. Cap-and-trade is unlikely to pass in the form that the president’s supporters desire, and his health care package still hangs in the balance, despite appearances on all five Sunday talk shows last month, an interview with David Letterman, and a nationally televised prime-time address. Obama’s personal approval ratings significantly outstrip support for his proposals, demonstrating that, contrary to the presumptuous claims of Jimmy Carter, it is possible to harbor positive feelings toward the president yet still have honest disagreements with his policies. We need a leader, not a prom king.
The Copenhagen debacle came on the heels of the groveling spectacle that was Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
Before the world’s largest collection of mass murderers and tyrants, Obama continued the apology tour he commenced after assuming office, repeating his Cairo mantra that “no world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed,” among other contrite platitudes. In the rough-and-tumble of foreign affairs, as in life, people don’t respect those who don’t respect themselves, and the world has responded resoundingly to our post-national president’s periodic penitence.
Obama’s efforts — mostly intentional — are to make the US look small, unthreatening, humble. That may make us more popular, but the IOC’s rejection of Obama’s personal appeals was yet another indication that there are far more significant metrics of global influence than being liked. I would rather the United States be respected than liked.
The stunning rebuke delivered to this most internationally popular of presidents is a teachable moment.
If Barack Obama’s suave, “citizen of the world” charm can’t even get us beyond the first round of an international sporting competition, what does that say about his ability to garner support for solving far more serious and intractable problems?
James Kirchick is an assistant editor of The New Republic and a Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow.