I confess to being a bit surprised.  A year and a half ago, in the wake of Barack Obama’s reelection, I blogged that I was afraid this country wouldn’t be the same by the end of his presidency.  But now I believe that nothing much has changed, and Mr. Obama’s flexibility hasn’t meant a thing.

As to the flexibility he spoke of when he spoke with the Russian politician (see this HERE),

it seems not to have been realized.  Now, to be fair, Mr. Obama might have been lying to outgoing Russian president Medvedev (he lies to the American people often enough, why should we be his only victims?).

But this flexibility he spoke of is clearly a non-starter.

I didn’t want the Obama presidency to fail.  I also didn’t want to see him succeed at fundamentally changing American society, but I wanted him to be at least competent as the American President.  I wanted him to succeed in gaining respect for the USA in the international circus.  But he has failed on both counts.  He doesn’t have the first clue on how to work with a Congress that is dominated by a Republican House — mainly because he never heard the word “compromise”, or more likely is unalterably opposed to compromise.  Which is not a way to be “flexible”, incidentally.  And so he hasn’t been able to get much more than that horrible Obamacare passed.  As to internationally, the USA is held in far greater disregard and even contempt than at any time under any of Mr. Obama’s recent predecessors.

2016 cannot arrive soon enough, in my opinion.