i'm only surprised that this kind of criticism took three weeks. I fully expected some of the right-wing thunderdolts to itch about Obama's inability to make things perfect before he was even inaugurated. To wait this long is a tremendous show of restraint to the thunderdolts.

Barack Obama has now been president for 21 days, following an inauguration that was supposed to have pressed the reset button on America's relations with the wider world and ushered in a new period of global cooperation against common threats.

Really? The inauguration -- not the four to eight year term of the Obama presidency, mind you, but the single day of the inauguration itself -- was supposed to do all that?

Does Stephens drag the goalposts down the field all by himself, or does he hire someone to help him?

According to right-wingers, Bush wasn't responsible for the 9/11 attacks because nine months after Bush took office, Bill Clinton was still somehow magically in charge of American foreign policy and national security (apparently Bush's effective term began on 9/12/01). And yet a mere three weeks after Obama got started he's not only in charge, but is supposed to have reversed eight years of fuckups.

The number and complexity of the foreign policy problems that Bush left for Obama dwarfs the problems with the economy. Cleaning up the economy will be mind-numbingly expensive, but at least we can see an end point. Not so with foreign policy.

At least the economy has ground to a halt. With Afghanistan, the Middle East, Russia, North Korea and China, American foreign policy has been barreling down the road in the wrong direction. We have to stop, turn around and get back to where we started before we can begin to try to work on these problems. We're talking decades to fix things. And since the attention span of Americans is measured in seconds, it's going to be a long, unpleasant process.

AAHHHH, the Wingnuts' Lie-O-sphere sure is relishing its favorite position as opposition party. The 'fit' is just so much better. Having to cover for an incompetent, jackass of a president is much harder work than shouting names and making funny faces.

Plus, they have sooooo many more arrows in this quiver.

Schade - 21 days and the Heartbreak of Psoriasis persists with Mr Stephens.

"inspire fear among the wicked."

He has. Doug Feith lawyered up.

And where is my pony? I was specifically promised a pony, and if I don't get it, I am going to hold my breath until I turn blue!

To "inspire fear among the wicked" was the professed goal of the 9-11 attacks. Bush may have been happy to drag us all down to the moral level of Osama Bin Laden, but I get the sense that our current President has more worthy and ambitious goals.

Stephens then spends the next 700 words reminding us that Iran still engages in belligerent posturing

I'm sure Iran still believes in flossing after meals, but in a huge break in relations from the Bush-era they've signaled they're read to talk:

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, opened the door today to the prospect of talks with the US, less than 24 hours after Barack Obama said face-to-face discussions could take place within months.

"The new US administration has announced that they want to produce change and pursue the course of dialogue. It is quite clear that real change must be fundamental and not tactical. It is clear the Iranian nation welcomes real changes," Ahmadinejad told a rally in Tehran's Freedom Square during celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution.

"The Iranian nation is ready to hold talks, but talks in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect."

He said terrorism, the elimination of nuclear weapons, restructuring the UN security council and the fight against drug trafficking could be the subjects of discussion.

The Iranian leader said the world was "entering an era of dialogue and intellect" because military power had been unsuccessful, and "does not want to see the dark age of Bush repeated".

Huh, headway with Iran after only 21 days when Bush couldn't (or wouldn't) do it in five years.

I was just bustling on here to say what trex said better.

AAHHHH, the Wingnuts' Lie-O-sphere sure is relishing its favorite position as opposition party. The 'fit' is just so much better.

And I wish them many decades of this comfort. They've earned it!

I don't think Bret Stephens should be paid any attention at all. The more he is ignored the better.

From Who needs nukes, March 2007:

"Would it hinder Islamist terrorists if the U.S.'s declared policy in the event of a nuclear 9/11 was the immediate destruction of Mecca, Medina and the Iranian religious center of Qom?"

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/jsm/letter.html

I am sure Obama feels the same way Congressman John Steven McGroarty of California did in 1934 constituent letter:

One of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains reforested and I have been in Congress two months and haven't done it. Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell.

Obama's most likely finished after yesterday. He'll need a miracle or WWIV.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/786-The-Final-Countdown.html

You write: "It occurs to me -- and I'll just throw this out there as a possibility -- that maybe President Obama's foreign policy vision needs more than three weeks to make a difference."

Well, maybe. But his domestic policy is clearly and irrevocably a total failure. I know this for an absolute certainty because I have read it on so many liberal blogs. I could name names.

Kim Jong-Il obviously isn't going to come around faster than John Boehner

I've yet to see any evidence that John Boehner is more reasonable than Kim Jong-Il

All of this leads Stephens to conclude that the president needs to do more to "inspire fear among the wicked."

He's doing well for the moment by not inspiring fear and contempt among our allies, like his predecessor did.

While the thesis that Bret Stephens is a jerk has a mountain of data to support it, let me ask about the reference to the Egyptian novelist.

I just read a column that an Egyptian novelist wrote saying that the Moslem world is still waiting to hear Pres. Obama say something in support of the more than 1,000 Gazans, mostly civilians, who died during the recent Israeli attacks. Figure that in a couple weeks, the Israelis killed more than 25% of the number of American military who have died in Iraq over a period of 6 years. I think that if I were a Moslem, I would be somewhat perturbed that this doesn't seem to register with a world leader from whom I had hoped for better things.

Better start categorizing the types of complaints we can expect over the next four years: Obama should be doing better than he is. He promised more, we expected more, therefore he is a failure.

Failure is relative for these guys. Actually, failure is assumed. You just construct an ideal future and point out that Obama hasn't lead us to that future. And even if he gets there, it would have been too slow.

On the economy, the republicans are already suggesting that "the plan" will slow recovery. So next month, expect them to start talking about how the stimulus isn't working yet (when they are debating the new budget).

My reaction tracked Steve M's almost precisely, except I didn't think of The One: the dumb f***s bought into their own meme of the Magic Negro... And, once you bring magic into things, everything ought to be possible, in a blink of an eye.

Republicans like simple, fast answers to all problems, even complex ones that take months and years to resolve, because long answers require thought, and they have no recent history or practice in thinking. So they yell and bully instead of work at reason and persuasion. Though neocons claim to be experts on lots of things, they lie: they have disparaged intelligence, excellence and education ("the elites") for so long that they have eliminated people who can do so from their ranks. They have, literally, nothing to offer, are hopelessly incompetent (c.f. the last 8 years), and have apparently lost the ability to think, period.

The majority of Democrats gave positive approval ratings to GWB for nine months after 9/11. Well, so much for bipartisanship.