Is he the leader of Chicago, the United States or the Free World?

The Obama Who Would Be King

By Daniel Greenfield
Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The loss of the Chicago Olympics should not have been particularly embarrassing to Obama. Previous administrations were not tarnished by lost Olympic bids for the simple reason that they did not get involved in them. Bush did not jump on board New York City’s ill fated 2012 Olympic bid. He did not fly out to make a personal appearance, spread his charisma and press the flesh on behalf of a bid being waged by a single city. And there was no reason for him to do so. That is because for all the criticisms directed at Bush by the left and the far-right, he understood his duties and the limits of his power in a way that Obama does not.

Obama’s Copenhagen trip made at a cost of at least a million taxpayer dollars not only failed to achieve anything, but embarrassingly emphasized his inability to draw the line between the duties of his office and his sense of political omnipotence. Throughout his campaign and term in office, Obama has acted as if an application of his charisma can solve any problem. And he has yet to grasp not only that it can’t, but that his job is in the White House, rather than the endless global Miss America competition he has chosen to embark on.

Obama made Chicago’s Olympic bid his first priority, only squeezing in a half-hour session with General McChrystal who is in charge of the Afghan front that he had promised to commit all his efforts to on the campaign trail, after McChrystal embarrassed him by revealing that he had only talked once with Obama. Would anyone care to make a guess how many times Obama had spoken to those in charge of Chicago’s Olympic bid? Somehow I suspect it’s more than once. Or twice.

Egotistical refrain of “I’sâ€