President Obama’s poll numbers are sinking fast.  Even his ardent supporters are beginning to have second thoughts about him.  It’s easy to understand why.  He’s been in office for almost 6 years, and like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts comic strip, he makes a mess of everything he touches.  It’s becoming impossible to deny, and until recently, his follower’s denial was Obama’s ace in the hole.

From Europe to Russia to Asia to Africa to Latin America to the Middle East, Obama has left mayhem in his wake.  His penchant for abandoning friends, making nice with enemies, and cutting-and-running has made the United States weaker today than it has been in my lifetime.  From time immemorial, the strong have never respected weakness.  Like it or not, they still don’t, and I doubt they ever will.  Obama’s policies have made him and the U.S. a laughingstock. 

Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s “reset” with Russia is a perfect example.  Given what is taking place in Ukraine today, do you honestly think that Obama’s ill-timed and ill-conceived gestures toward Vladimir Putin motivated the Russian president to become a good neighbor?  Hardly.  Putin views our weakness as an opportunity to advance his agenda, and he has done that with reckless abandon.  Obama has finally begun to talk tough to Russia, but he never mentions the fact that his distorted view of reality caused the problem in the first place.

And what about the Middle East?  It was the first stop on Obama’s apology tour.  Since that day, the Middle East has come unglued.  Radical Islamists correctly interpreted Obama’s apology as weakness, and they have taken advantage of our weakness to build their strength.  Obama has integrated Islamists into his administration and made other friendly gestures toward them, but they still don’t like us. Even more, they don’t respect us.  They can never be our friends.  They don’t even like each other.

Islamists see us as infidels -- the enemy.  Their mission, their jihad is to subjugate or kill us.  I’m not scaremongering.  That’s what they say.  Every day, they chant “death to America” and “kill the infidels”.  Under Obama’s nose, they are actively involved in insurgencies around the world hoping to take control and rule by Sharia law which is in reality nothing more than tribal tyranny.

I don’t know about you, but if someone threatened to kill me and my family, I would take him seriously.  I definitely wouldn’t invite him into my home and offer him a cup of tea.  The first thing I would do is take steps to defend myself just in case he meant what he said, and we know for a fact that Islamists mean what they say.  Does “9/11” ring a bell?  At this point, ignoring them is suicidal.  If you are President of the United States, it’s criminal because he has a constitutional duty to defend us.

One Israeli journalist said that Obama sees the world as “la la land”.  That’s a benevolent interpretation Obama’s screw-ups.  People at the other end of the spectrum have said that Obama is inherently evil.  Regardless of his inclinations, though, judging by outcomes alone Obama’s presidency has been a dismal failure. 

No one knows that better than the people of Israel.  They have borne the brunt of Obama’s blunders.  Even left-wing Israelis are beginning to recognize and talk publically about his incompetence.  In Israel, feelings toward Obama have intensified to the point that even Tzipi Livni, Israel’s left-wing Minister of Justice, is trying to distance herself from him.  That speaks volumes. 

If Livni stays the present course, I may have to stop calling her Obama’s lapdog.  I doubt that will happen, though, because I think she’s just another politician of the charlatan variety.  Maybe that’s why she and Obama are such good friends.

Neil Snyder is the Ralph A. Beeton Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.