But it is worth pointing out that this story will not go away. In two months, Obama will be heading back to Copenhagen for another failure, the UN Climate Conference. He will be going to Copenhagen empty handed, with no climate change bill to show. Indeed, the top story right now at the official site notes that “the honeymoon appears to be over” and compares Obama to former President George W. Bush. Indeed The Economist echoes this language, in a story dated yesterday entitled “The honeymoon between Europe and Barack Obama’s America is over.”

European Union politicians and officials are dismayed that, with a poisonous debate over health reform chewing up his political capital in Congress, Mr Obama may not secure legislation fixing binding emissions targets for America before the climate-change summit in Copenhagen in December. They also think the health-care impasse explains the lack of progress on the Doha world-trade talks. Nor did Europeans enjoy the G20 meeting that Mr Obama hosted in Pittsburgh. Despite hogging a ludicrous number of seats at the table, the EU came away with only one big Europe-specific agreement: alas, for them, it was a plan to cut their voting power at the IMF.

Today, we saw that Obama’s international celebrity is not matched by his international clout. And this message is going to get nailed home with issue after issue, whether it is Afghanistan, the next Copenhagen meeting, or whatever else happens.

It must be tough having to live with a persona and a rhetoric that has nothing to do with reality.

After Sunday's election, Germany's political landscape has been shaken up, perhaps for ever. Angela Merkel's conservatives will be able to form a coalition government with the business-friendly FDP, but the balance of power between the two parties has fundamentally shifted. And the once-powerful Social Democrats may never recover from their defeat.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has probably saved her chancellorship -- but the price that her conservatives will have to pay for it is high. The election result for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is lower than in 2005. Nevertheless, she can form a coalition government with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party because support for the FDP has increased in a way that until recently pollsters would scarcely have thought possible.

Just as in the European elections, we are seeing a splinter of the political scene. On the left, the far left gained, the Greens gain, the centrist-left collapsed, the center-right shrunk slightly, and the liberal party gained massively. The right (center-right + liberals) has grown, but not hugely.

Several things to take away from this in the time of an economic downturn:

First, the appeal of libertarian positions has grown. Even in Europe and Germany there has been an anti-government, anti-entitlement, pro-reform movement that is growing massively. We see this here in the tea party movement.

The response to the economic crisis has been more freedom and less government. Somehow government is getting the blame, at the ballot box, for the downturn.

Second, the center-left has lost credibility, but the numbers on the left are still large if you include the far-left. It is hard to imagine a victory of the German left without the Left Party, but it is also questionable whether this turns off swing voters between the center-right and center-left. Some on the American left will try to learn the lesson that they need to move to the left -- isn't that always the lesson? -- but one wonders if, like the SPD, the Democrats would suffer from highlighting their relationship with the far-left.

All in all, we are in a situation in which right-leaning parties are sweeping elections or performing at historic highs. These things happen in response to global events. It will be interesting to see if this pattern continues into the next year. 

Here’s what Bloomberg reported:

Barroso’s victory in the EU Parliament stemmed from support by the Christian Democrats, the biggest faction, and the pro- business Liberals, the third-largest group. The vote was 382 to 219, with 117 abstentions.

Socialist and Green members, still unhappy that Barroso supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when he was Portuguese government leader, refused to back his reappointment while failing to present a rival candidate. The Socialists, the second-biggest faction, said Barroso could pick up their support when putting together his next team of commissioners, who will need Parliament approval as a whole.

The leadership of the European Parliament has an option for the first time in history. They can decide to govern from the center-right. This vote was the first example of this coalition actually working. This follows after a crushing defeat of the left in the European elections and the right governing in the leading European countries: Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and others, and David Cameron all but certain to be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This gives the right the control of the European Council, in addition to the Commission and Parliament.

Let’s see if the leadership of the European Parliament learns this lesson.

Let's start with the time of its announcement: 9:18pm. Really? Saturday morning in China? This tells us who the audience for this policy was: the United States. It tells us that Obama is willing to subordinate trade policy -- just before the G-20 meeting no less -- to domestic politics that he is embarassed about. Why else release this late on a Friday night?  (note that by statute, he didn't have to release a response to International Trade Commission recommendations until the 17th. He picked this timing)

By Saturday afternoon, China issues scathing remarks. By Sunday, they announce counter-tariffs against US chickens and auto-parts. We have a full scale trade war.  And Asian and European markets open the week down. Thanks Barack...

So Barack Obama started a trade war for entirely domestic reasons, jeopardizing the recovery, and is afraid of the headlines here, why he doesn't care about international opinion. How does that sound?

Now, why chickens and auto parts? I don't immediately understand the chickens, although I suspect it is a pretty good business for us, but I understand auto parts. 

US auto parts are made by the United Autoworkers, the same union that Obama bailed out when he bailed out GM and Chrysler, two companies that had becoming wards of their union pension funds. In addition to hurting the unions, this could hurt the auto manufacturers themselves, which Obama owns and which opposed the tire tariffs because it will raise their costs. First he screwed the car companies for the UAW, now USW. Perhaps this is a lesson for when he takes over the health care sector. 

So where was the logic in this? He helps his allies, with one hand, but hurts them with the other. He hurts the economy. He hurts the government run companies. And he opens a trade war just in time for the G-20 to create real structural damage to the US economy.

Furthermore, this is how he is celebrating the anniversary of the death of Lehman Brothers. By sticking the knife in the economy.

That's change I can believe in.

The fight in New Hampshire seems increasingly the decisive one on the GOP side. (Of course, if Fred Thompson were to come in 3rd in Iowa, that might shift to South Carolina) There, the fight is between Romney and John McCain. Especially in the context of the Bhutto assassination, McCain is trying to frame the debate as around experience, as is Hillary Clinton. Romney is focusing on judgment:

“If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the state department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy,” he said. “That is not what a nation needs in a president. The person that is president of the United States we look to have leadership skill. Which is the ability to assemble a great team of people, to be able to guide and direct them to understand what decision has to be made on the basis of data and analysis and debate and deliberation. An individual who knows how to make difficult decisions.”

Romney is focusing on his ability to "manage", something long-time campaign-mouthpiece Hugh Hewitt has focused on. There is a reason that Hewitt and Romney focus on management skills. He doesn’t have much in terms of experience. As Hugh says in his book on Romney:

And Romney knows the war. He he worked to learn its complexities and the nature of our diverse enemies, constantly reading the sorts of books that must be absorbed.

McCain contrasts this "book-learning" with his knowledge. From the Des Moines Register:

"I knew Benazir Bhutto. I know Musharraf very well," McCain told an audience of about 200 at the Elks Club in Urbandale. "If I were president of the United States I would be on the phone right now and I would be meeting with the National Security Council."

Seemingly a contrast between book-smarts and street-smarts. McCain knows the actors (thus his thoughts about Putin, which President Bush seems to have gotten wrong and McCain right) and operates from that position. One gets to argue from data though. How have people argued in the past from the input of experts? Ronald Reagan, of course, rejected the experts on "tear[ing] down that wall" and the SALT Treaty. He even created a new intelligence agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency because he wasn’t satisfied with the experts at the CIA.

Of course, if you rely too much on the experts, you run into the problem of being "brainwashed by the generals and the diplomats," to quote Romney’s father.  (National Journal/MSNBC notes that Romney is closing on, in part, his father) It seems that if you take Romney’s "judgment" answer, you are trapped by your advisers, a problem that Reagan transcended.If you have your own experience, you have something to work with.

I think that I know where I would prefer to be. I wonder where the people of New Hampshire will land.

An attack on a political rally killed the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto near the capital, Islamabad, Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto was fired upon at close range before the blast, and an official from her party said Ms. Bhutto was further injured by the explosion, which was apparently caused by a suicide attacker.

That’s why Michael Medved said:

 In the last week before the caucuses, voters are finally taking a serious look at which candidate represents the most plausible commander-in-chief. McCain’s biggest advantage in Iowa, New Hampshire and across the country involves his military background, personal heroism in Vietnam, and courageous consistency concerning the Iraq War. The unmistakable success of the surge (even Harry Reid now admits that the new policy has delivered big time military progress) validates McCain’s leadership and underlines his expertise on defense and foreign policy. A month before making up their minds, citizens may cast about for a “fresh face” or an “agent of change,” but when they face a fateful decision on caucus night or primary day they generally prefer a president who’s ready to lead the ongoing war on Islamo-Nazi terror from day one.

For all the guy’s warts, John McCain really is ready to  be commander-in-chief.

UPDATE: My friend Erick at Redstate makes the same point.

Today, John McCain got some press for stating, as a number of people had already, that David Petraeus should be Time’s Man of the Year, not Vladimir Putin. He is transparently correct.

But there is a broader point that should be made in the context of the GOP’s presidential nominating contest. Look what McCain said in 2000 about Putin. (H/T Instapundit) The guy understood what Putin was. President Bush, who got many things right in our foreign policy, got Russia horribly wrong. If he had more experience, he might have gotten it right. And having good advisers isn’t enough. Condi Rice, a Sovietologist, should have known better.

Never mind McCain being right on Iraq.

So when we have these discussions about people’s foreign policy credentials, we should at least give credit where credit is due. Experience, at least in McCain’s case, would have mattered. As we look forward, we need to remember that. When people attack Mike Huckabee for his foreign policy but praise Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, or Rudy Giuliani, we should remember something fundamental. Their foreign policy statements are ghost-written. John McCain’s aren’t. That’s a real difference.

This shines an important light on National Review’s endorsement of Mitt Romney, which I discussed previously. They had a conference call today to defend it. I didn’t hear a single supportive question, and no one spoke up in favor of their endorsement. Ari Richter of the Concord Monitor asked why so little discussion of foreign policy twice. The first time, Rich Lowry responded that all the candidates were pretty similar. They shared the same views, so the only differences are execution.

But you know what? I don’t think that’s true. Experience and demonstrated judgment matter in this stuff. A lot. And it says a lot about National Review that they are playing that down. And John McCain’s statements today and almost 8 years ago demonstrate that.

Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, will receive a $7.5 billion cash infusion from Abu Dhabi to replenish capital after record mortgage losses wiped out almost half its market value. … the state-owned Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

Let’s put the pieces together.

1. We have a shadowy Middle Eastern monarch. A King. He is loaded up to the gills with oil money.
2. We are worried about Middle Eastern terrorism.
3. We have a domestic housing crises that risks being a larger economic crisis.
4. We have an intangible crisis of confidence involving globalization.
5. This is about our banks and our money. Now some king in the Middle East tied to oil — and inevitably terrorism, legitimately or not — makes money if I don’t pay off the whole balance on my Citibank credit card.

Remember the 80s when people were taking sledge hammers to Japanese cars? How do you take sledge hammers to banks? Owned by Arabs. Etc.

This a made for demogoguery moment. If you thought Dubai Ports was bad (and, btw, I think that the President got it right, but you knew I was a rabid internationalist) just you wait.

I asked two sets of questions, one about the race for UN Secretary General, the allegations of corruption, and the role of China, and another about the need for new institutions. While I got some great lines, (like "I wish we had a foreign aid budget for buying votes at the UN") the broader point that I came out of this meeting with was something that has been bothering me for a while, but fits with Bolton’s overall theme.

It is clear that the international system is at the end of an era. We won with Cold War with institutions like the GATT, the development banks, NATO, UN, NPT, Bretton Woods, and the EU. However, it is clear that these institutions, with the partial exception of the EU, are fully dysfunctional. The WTO (once the GATT) seems to have run aground on Doha. And it seems clear that a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress will be resistant to further trade agreements that deepen globalization. No one really knows what to do with the development banks, but it is not clear what problem they are solving. Their current mission bears little resemblance to the early ones. It is clear that the US, UK, Spain, Canada, Sarkozy’s France, and the staff of NATO know where they want it to go. But getting the rest of the organization to sign up is going to be harder. The UN is in free-fall, totally incapable of addressing the hard questions. (of course, one wonders whether it should be for addressing the hard questions) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is … umm… huh? We are trying to ignore it with India, with El-Baradei’s blessing. Other countries are walking away. And it seems that it at least needs to be somewhat retooled and reconceived in a time of nuclear power (as a response to global warming). When I was in Warsaw about 6 weeks ago, someone on CNBC-Europe said, "Bretton Woods II has failed. It is time for Bretton Woods III." And the EU is on a whole new mission.

Meanwhile, we are struggling with how to extend the Geneva Conventions to an opponent that consists primarily of non-state actors. Non-state actors are negotiating international agreements.

I don’t know what the answers are. John McCain has proposed a League of Democracies, that is part of an answer. I still have trouble seeing a clear foreign policy from the other GOP candidates. And the Democrats are struggling to be honest about living up to our obligations in Iraq, and showing no courage on the international trade agenda, and a very reactionary policy towards the rest of the institutions. (with, again, Clinton being marginally more responsible than the others)

One of the inspiring stories for me as I considered getting into politics was Nixon talking about his trip to Europe where he became convinced of the Marshall Plan. Then he went home and tried to educate Americans. His Bircher-filled congressional district changed positions after a lecture series, and decided to support one of the largest foreign aid programs in world history.

Can you imagine anyone with the courage to do that? Can you imagine a serious debate about this? The Democrats are more interested in screaming than being serious. And Mitt Romney is talking about "Reagan enterprise zones." (at least, I should say, he recognizes the problems of the WTO, just not the broader questions)

"The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late," Romney said in response to a question at a pancake house along the coast of early voting South Carolina. "We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council."

Turns out that we don’t actually have a seat on the Human Rights Council though:

Actually, the United States doesn’t have a seat on the human rights council, which it has been boycotting.

With that kind of knowledge, Romney may need to call in the lawyers after all…

It also turns out that he was just trying to keep up with the Joneses:

Romney was sharing the political attention in this state with GOP rival John McCain, who is on his second consecutive day of campaigning here.

McCain, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, accused both Russia and China of causing gridlock in the U.N. Security Council and hindering the world body’s ability to sanction Iran or address pressing matters in Darfur, Burma and other trouble spots.

Difference was… John McCain knew what he was talking about.