Barak Obama: hated, despised and humiliated both at home and abroad

These are bad times for Barak Obama, and humiliations seems to fall upon him every day.  Yesterday it what a double-whammy: first NBC and the WSJ announced that Obama's approval rating were at a historical low and then Forbes announced that Obama's most hated adversary, Vladimir Putin, had displaced him in the Forbes world's most powerful person list and was now the most powerful person on the planet, followed by Obama and right after him Xi Jinping.

Of course, these are pure "media events" or, more accurately, non-events.  Nothing really happened.  But to a image and media centric politician like Obama these are very, very bitter pills to swallow because the send him a double message: both the people and the elites see you as a loser, in sharp contrast to Putin who is viewed as *the* big leader with whom everybody has to deal to get anything done.

Even the always hyper submissive and unconditionally subservient European leaders are taking some wholly symbolic, ambiguous and oblique steps to express their (wholly hypocritical and fake) dissatisfaction with the USA.  Another non-event, and yet its also a real humiliation: since when do US colonial satraps get to voice criticisms, even indirect ones?!

In many ways, Obama has proven to be even more incompetent that Dubya because while under (Bush) "Junior" most of the planet did hate the USA, there still was a small list of countries which remained loyal to the USA no matter what: Israel, the KSA and the EU.  Obama has managed to alienate even those.

Obama is now hated and despised everywhere, at home and abroad, while his most determined adversary is praised for his strength.  I can't say I am sorry for him because while I personally never believed a word he said, I know of many good and decent people who really believe that Obama represented "change we can believe in".  Obama betrayed these people and he deserves every bit of the humiliation he is now subjected to.

The Saker