The Absentee Administration: Obama Falls Silent Amid World Crises

I've forgotten now, but I saw some progressive network bloviator the other day defending President Obama's lame Brazil trip while the rest of the world was literally melting down. The jokes write themselves at this point: Hillary Clinton campaigned against Barack Obama's unpreparedness for the crucial "3:00 AM" moment, and then she ends up announcing she won't hang around for a second term at precisely the crucial foreign policy crisis where Americans would have preferred she was answering the red phone. Kimberley Strassel was on this the other day, "President 'Present'." And here's this classic summary from Donald Sensing:

There is nothing at all in Obama's pre-presidential resume that shows he ever made highly difficult decisions that depended, at the end, on his own personal reservoir of wisdom and experience. So he does not tackle the inbox because its contents are above his competence. (One is reminded of Obama telling Rick Warren that when an unborn child gets human rights is "above my pay grade.") He tends instead to lesser matters that match his lower level of competence, such as filling out basketball brackets and flying down to Rio on a five-day trip of little importance, but which conveniently corresponds to his daughters' spring break. So tourism time will be a heavy feature of the agenda. But will anything presidential be accomplished?

See also, Rex Murphy, "When crisis strikes the world, Obama falls silent" (at Memeorandum).