Help Us, Obama Wan Kenobi

“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”
― Oscar Wilde

They're pretty upset at the Old Curiosity Shop on Portland Avenue:

The president was right to suggest that social media amplifies the world’s messiness. But he failed to acknowledge his own complicity. Obama, himself, stands as a prime reason for the world’s confusion. Another of his remarks last week, that “we don’t have a strategy yet” against ISIL, also known as ISIS, adds greatly to a gnawing sensation that the civilized world is missing a leader capable of articulating a way forward against what seems like mounting chaos. As NATO begins its summit today in Wales, the world is waiting for a leader — maybe even Obama — to step forward and make sense of it all.

We've been through this already, kids. Obama leads from behind. In other words, he doesn't. Meanwhile, the bien pensants on the Strib editorial board are desperately clinging to the illusion that they aren't actually full of baked wind, despite their protestations which add a continuing whiff of methane in the air:

This page twice endorsed Obama for president and, considering the options, he was and remains the right choice. Americans are better off with his realistic approach to world affairs than they were with the neoconservative policies of the Bush-Cheney era, a span that contributed greatly to the world’s current troubles.

But Obama, for all his skill as a campaigner, has been astonishingly inept at telling his story as president. Americans know almost nothing of his considerable accomplishments (a vastly fairer health care system, an impressively recovering economy), owing to his painful inability to construct a policy narrative at home and to articulate a program abroad. One begins to wonder if any coherent foreign policy exists.

His "considerable accomplishments" are both failures, but we'll leave that aside. That our betters are still blaming Bush, six years on, for the failings of their hero, tells you all you need to know. Heck, they're even blaming Lloyd George and Clemenceau:

 Even our so-called allies (the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Qataris) are indirectly funding ISIL, whose grievances, by the way, date back to the treachery of other allies (Britain and France) who betrayed Arab aspirations after World War I by carving the region into faux states for their own colonial benefit.

Why stop there? Arab grievances go back to the 7th Century. It doesn't matter, though, as long as our Hero does everything the Strib editorialists deem necessary. It's a long list and I've already excerpted enough of the piece; you should go read it yourself. The desperation is palpable.