The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama

From the Wall St. Journal.

"He talks too much," a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America's 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory.

He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth.

He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest."

Nor does he walk on water, but he DOES find ways to pay Peggy the Moocher's mortgage, put gas in her car, and get people in Detroit to line up around a building to collect $3000 each of "stash" money. He also manages to make it more profitable to stay unemployed than to go back to work...even if you have to MAKE the job yourself!