YNET NEWS: Great hopes stirred by Obama waning in wake of questionable performance
The fact that Barack Obama is the first American president since 1991 not to meet the Dalai Lama is not worrying in and of itself.
The reason why Obama chose to adopt this dubious step (his wish not to upset China) is also not perturbing. After all, he does not fundamentally object to anything about the Dalai Lama. He simply listened to the wrong advisor and underestimated his power as an American president and his ability to be received with great honors anywhere in the world, regardless of who he met with the day before.
Yet the issue is becoming disquieting because of the feeling that is increasingly being reinforced in our collective sense of anxiety that the charismatic guy who ran the exciting campaign – the guy who for a moment convinced all of us that we’ll be seeing an acute change and that the world will at once turn into a good place to live in – is turning before our eyes into a so-so president, at best.
His rhetorical ability is still there, but suddenly everyone is talking about the fact that the American president is reading from a teleprompter. Charisma isn’t enough >>> Hanoch Daum | Tuesday, October 06, 2009
