FROM BRITAIN - WITH REAL LOVE - AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  You can always identify your real friends.  They'll tell you the truth.  We've noted here before that British writers have been rather direct in their disappointment with the Obama administration.  Here, one of the toughest, Gerald Warner of London's Telegraph, sounds off once more in a piece called "Obama's Peace Tour has Left US a More Dangerous Place."  Certainly says it, doesn't it?

THERE is a certain type of political career that has auto-destruction built into its DNA: look no further than the predicament of the pathetic creature pointlessly lingering on in 10 Downing Street, si monumentum requiris. To this category belongs Barack Obama. This, of course, is heresy to the consensus that is still rapturously inhaling the heady fumes of self-delusion - as it did with Tony Blair.

What most Obama sceptics would have to concede is some surprise at the speed with which he has launched into self-destruct mode. The President Pantywaist tour on which he embarked, embracing America's enemies, was fairly predictable, even if some of the detail was more grotesque than expected. There was, however, one area where most commentators believed Obama would tread warily: it seemed implausible that he would play politics with America's national security within his first 100 days in office.

Warner is referring to memogate.  And he concludes:

Obama has no hope of controlling the process he has precipitated. In this climate, what CIA officer could possibly feel motivated to do anything more controversial than make paperclip chains in his office? Dubya left the White House with just one plus point: on his watch, there was no further atrocity on US soil after 9/11. Now that Obama has emasculated the security forces, an outrage representing even 1% of the September 11 toll would consign The One to the ferocious vengeance of the American people.

COMMENT:  That is not a positive review.  With violence increasing in Iraq, with Iran closer to the bomb, with Pakistan collapsing, with North Korea restarting its nuke program, with Russia rearming, with China building its military, with Latin American leftists in the ascendant, you'd think Obama would have something better to do than release old CIA memos that can only hurt this country.

The president took the oath of office twice.  Maybe re-reading it another time would be helpful.

April 26, 2009