With friends like Barack Obama... treatment of Tony Abbott capricious and reckless

The Australian ^ | 17 November 2014 | Greg Sheridan

[Dundee]

BARACK Obama blindsided the Abbott government in Brisbane, pretty viciously. Through his remarks on climate change, he has damaged the government politically.

It’s a strange way to treat a friend but it is ...Obama’s presidential style, especially as the power ebbs from him in the dying days of his reign.

...damage may not be long-lasting because the US President’s remarks bore little relation to anything he can deliver or will do. Instead, they reprise the most ineffably capricious and inconsequential moments in the Obama presidency: grand gestures, soaring visions, which never actually get implemented in the real world.

Obama went out of his way to imply, in the most politically damaging fashion he could, that Australia’s efforts on climate change were negligible and compared poorly with America’s... As some American journalists observed, it is not a speech Obama would have given at home, where his authority is gone and nobody buys the moonshine any more.

...substantial passages of the Brisbane speech were designed by Obama or his speech writers to damage the government.

Given the Abbott government has given the US every support in the Middle East, done everything it can to sustain the US presence in Asia, and agreed with US objections, made by Obama himself, to the governance structures of China’s proposed infrastructure bank such that Canberra has decided for the moment not to join, its capricious and reckless treatment by Obama emphasises Washington’s tin ear with allies, a problem it has had for the whole of Obama’s second term.

...by using motifs which have figured in the domestic Australian debate, such as the fate of the Great Barrier Reef, Obama’s speechwriters determined to hurt the Abbott government.

It is a dangerous thing to be an enemy of Obama’s. Apparently, it can be fatal to be his friend.

[hinckley buzzard]

Obama's conduct is what one would expect from a narcissistic character disorder who has been recently publicly humiliated, as with the election. His insistence that his agenda was on the ballot is strong evidence that he has lost what mental balance he had coming into office. We can expect even more egregious misconduct in the next two years.

[naturalman1975]

Has he really damaged the Abbott government in any real way, or was it just sign of duchbaggery that gets quickly forgotten in the next news cycle?? I am curious, because the write of this article makes it seem that Abbotts days are limited by this ONE Obama speech!??

Tony Abbott is already unpopular in the Australian electorate, largely because of a very successful smear campaign by the left leaning media (which is most of it) deliberately supporting the lines (and, at time, lies) of the Labor and Green parties.

President Obama's speech reinforces all of that - and gives encouragement to these left wing people who think they are always correct and that their positions are unimpeachable, and will give them another boost.

It is nearly two years until the next election. There's plenty of time for Mr Abbott to get himself out of the electoral hole, he's in and also for the shine to come off Labor - but what Mr Obama has done has probably knocked Abbott about two months backwards. It's also diverting attention from Mr Abbott's diplomatic successes at this forum, which have been quite considerable really.

Labor and the Greens together all but control our Senate (technically the Greens are only part of the balance of power - but the others that hold the rest of the balance are very unpredictable) and they are using that power to block measures that are needed to fix our damaged economy (the damage being the result of Labor overspending mostly) and that further complicates things - if the conservatives can't fix the economy (even if it's because Labor and the Greens won't allow the necessary laws to pass) we lose our most potent political chip.

And President Obama has just made it even more likely that Labor and the Greens will continue to act the way they are, because he's given them political cover.

[Wicket]

On behalf of the US, Australia, please accept our apologies for electing and reelecting a foolish, narcissistic, feckless and destructive man. We try to keep him home and hit him with a newspaper occasionally when he poos on others, but some folks are just untrainable.

[PGR88]

The entire world has learned that there are no consequences to opposing Obama. Abbott should not concern himself too much with Obama’s attack. Obama’s a petty person, who will only become smaller over the next two years. As in the USA, anyone supporting him or connected to him in Australia will look like a fool before too long.