Barack Obama is turning himself into a case study of how a U.S. president should not conduct foreign policy. With his propensity to constantly seek the spotlight, Obama has morphed into commentator-in-chief when it comes to the still unfolding crisis in Egypt.

Instead of keeeping a low profile, weighing developments and not sticking his neck out amid fast-changing events on the ground, Obama feels it necessary to issue a spate of public pronouncements that are quickly overtaken by what's really happening in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.

The self-made hubris that afflicts Obama was dramatically illustrated on Feb. 10 when, in anticipation of a public address by Hosni Mubarak that the media touted beforehand as a formal fareweell, Obama didn't even wait to hear what the Egyptian leader would say and, during a trip to Michigan, began exulting that Mubarak was about to follow the script Obama had devised for him. So Obama told the world that we were about to see history unfold before our eyes and witness a historically transformational moment.

Instead, nothing of the sort actually happened. A stubborn Mubarak announced that he would not step down before elections in September and, while he would delegate authority to his vice president, Omar Suleiman, Mubarak would not surrender his presidential prerogatives in the meantime. The White House reaction: Gulp!

Obama has been too quick to put all his weight behind the protesting mobs, a motley collection of genuine democrats and radical Islamists. At the same time,
he has been on a slippery slope of accepting a major political role for the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist outfit that spawned Hamas and other terror groups.
But, given Obama's repeated miscues, what can you expect from an administration whose national intelligence director, James Clapper, tells a congressional committee that the Muslim Brotherhood is a collection of ''secular" activists.

Here's Obama's top intelligence adviser blind to the Muslim Brotherhood's inherent Islamic theocratic beliefs and agenda. The brotherhood wants nothing less than an Allah-branded caliphate in Egypt, throughout the Middle East, and eventually around the globe.

American influence is a cherished commodity that shouldn't be frittered away. Under Obama, it is disappearing at a quickening pace.

LEO RENNERT