How "Hope and Change" Became "Dysfunction and Surrender"

It is pretty obvious to anyone who follows current events that the Obama administration’s record on foreign affairs has been pretty abysmal:

• It has allowed North Korea and Iran to get much closer to having ICBM capabilities of delivering nuclear weapons a far distance.
• It has allowed Russia to re-establish itself on the world stage, becoming a force against Europe and a force throughout the Middle East.
• It has allowed ISIS to become the most terrifying and wealthiest terrorist force of all time.
• It has constantly failed to lead when it comes to fighting terrorism, with Obama not attending the world summit that occurred as a result of the Paris terror attacks while attending a baseball game, learning to tango, and playing golf as Brussels with still cleaning up the carnage of the latest European terrorist attack.
• When a Middle East summit was called by the White House, leaders of many Middle Eastern countries declined to attend or sent secondary representatives.
• The administration ticked off many, many allies when it came to light that the administration was using the NSA to spy on other countries and their leaders, with the Brazilian prime minister cancelling a Washington state dinner in protest.
• It has more or less created the reality where "our friends do not trust us and our enemies do not fear us."

The infamous list goes on and on. This administration and the President that heads it has failed time after time to be the leader that the world expects from the President of the United States. Just yesterday, we reviewed how this President failed to have ”good optics” in the aftermath of the Brussels terrorist bombings, looking unconcerned and uncaring, attending a meaningless baseball game, learning to dance the tango, and playing golf as body bags were being used and wounded were being cared for as a result of the Brussels bombings.

And to add insult to injury, today we review a recent analysis from Forbes magazine which put together its annual list of the 50 greatest leaders in the world today, leaders from all walks of life, politics, sports, business, show business, etc. The 2016 list reads as follows:

• Jeff Bezos – CEO, Amazon
• Angela Merkel – Chancellor, Germany
• Aung San Suu Kyi – Leader, National League for Democracy
• Pope Francis – Pontiff, Roman Catholic Church
• Tim Cook – CEO, Apple
• John Legend – Recording artist and activist, The Show Me Campaign
• Christiana Figueres – Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• Paul Ryan – Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
• Sheikh Hasina – Prime Minister, Bangladesh
• Nick Saban – Head football coach, The University of Alabama
• Huateng “Pony” Ma – Chairman and CEO, Tencent
• Sergio Moro – Federal Judge, Brazil
• Bono – Lead singer & Co-Founder, U2 & One
• Stephen Curry & Steve Kerr – Point guard & head coach, Golden State Warriors
• Bryan Stevenson – Founder, Equal Justice Initiative
• Nikki Haley – Governor, South Carolina
• Lin-Manuel Miranda – Composer, lyricist & author, “Hamilton”
• Marvin Ellison – CEO, J.C. Penney
• Reshma Saujani – Founder & CEO, Girls Who Code
• Larry Fink – CEO, BlackRock
• Scott Kelly & Mikhail Kornienko – Crew members, International Space Station
• David Miliband – CEO, International Rescue Committee
• Anna Maria Chávez – CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA
• Carla Hayden – Nominee, Library of Congress
• Maurizio Macri – President, Argentina
• Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors & Opal Tometi – Co-founders, Black Lives Matter
• Chai Jing – Freelance journalist, China
• Moncef Slaoui – Chairman of Vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline
• John Oliver – Host & Executive Producer, “Last Week Tonight”
• Marc Edwards – Professor, Virginia Tech
• Arthur Brooks – President, American Enterprise Institute
• Rosie Batty – Founder, Luke Batty Foundation
• Kristen Griest & Shayne Haver – Rangers, U.S. Army
• Denis Mukwege – Founder, Panzi Hospital
• Christine Legarde – Managing Director, IMF
• Marc Benioff – CEO, Salesforce
• Gina Raimondo – Governor, Rhode Island
• Amina Mohammed – Minister of Environment, Nigeria
• Domenica Lucano – Mayor, Riace, Italy
• Melinda Gates & Susan Desmond-Hellman – Co-chair & CEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Arvind Kejriwal – Chief Minister, New Delhi
• Jorge Ramos – Journalist, Univision
• Michael Froman – U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President
• Mina Guli – CEO, Thirst
• Ramón Mendéz – Head of Climate Change Policy, Uruguay
• Bright Simons – President & Founder, Mpedigree
• Justin Trudeau – Prime Minister, Canada
• Clare Rewcastle Brown – Editor & Founder, Sarawak Report
• Tshering Tobgay – Prime Minister, Bhutan

As you see, the list of leaders includes a university football coach but does not include President Obama. It includes a couple of NBA basketball players but does not include President Obama. It includes two governors from two of the smaller states, South Carolina and Rhode Island, but does not include President Obama. It includes a music composer but does not include President Obama.

You get the idea. The head of the most powerful country in the world, the country with the largest economy and largest military, the country that is probably still the single superpower left in the world today, did not make the Forbes list of the top 50 leaders throughout the world in 2016. 

Now, one might question the criteria and analysis that Forbes used to arrive at a list of leaders that omits the President of the United States and that would be a fair question. But consider what Fortune editor Alan Murray explained why he left out the ‘Leader of the Free World’:

“I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 largely because of his call to unite blue states and red states behind a politics of hope. But it hasn’t happened. At home our politics are as divided—and our federal government is as dysfunctional—as they were when he took office.

Abroad, the record is worse. Many wise foreign-policy analysts believe the President’s public waffling on Syria not only fed the terrorism of the Islamic State, but also emboldened thugs around the world— notably Vladimir Putin. The President has dismissed their criticism by saying he is “less concerned about style points.” But when it comes to leadership, style matters...In his book On Becoming a Leader, the late Warren Bennis said the differences between leaders and managers are “the differences between those who master the context and those who surrender to it.” It’s a good distinction. Faced with difficult circumstances, President Obama has surrendered.”

“President Obama has surrendered….the Federal government is as dysfunctional.” Harsh but nevertheless true. Every month in our political class insanity posts we review how dysfunctional the Federal government still is and in fact, is probably more dysfunctional than it was back in 2009 when Obama took office. We listed the foreign affairs blunders up above which Mr. Murray correctly characterizes as surrender on behalf of the President.

The motto of “hope and change” is now been reduced to “dysfunctional and surrender.” So much so, that the leader of the most powerful country in the world might not even make the top 50 of the most influential leaders in the world, regardless of how the selection is made. So sad, just another American political class sham and failure.

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