Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Jonah Goldberg’s opinion piece/hit job on Barack Obama in the LA Times.
I know we’re all entitled to our opinion, so let me get a few things off my chest in regard to Mr. Goldberg and his stupid opinion:

We have a sitting President who was reading a book to children during the worst act of terrorism in our nation’s history.  When he was informed of the act, he continued reading the book.  (To be fair, I hear that it is a riveting story and once you pick it up, you can’t put it down… but I’m paraphrasing; the reviewer was 4.)  This President has led us into countless fiascoes, international and domestic.  To describe his two terms in office as a train wreck might incur a defamation suit from Amtrak.  The President spent the last several days in Beijing, staring lovingly into the eyes of his soul mate, Vlad Putin, watching hoops and checking out our women’s beach volleyball team.  When asked about the events in Georgia and South Ossetia on NBC, he strangely couldn’t stop smiling, nor could he later resist a “funny” quip about how he was all ready to check out some swimming if Bob Costas would just stop forcing him to think about his job and stuff…  If anyone should be worried about whether or not they appear Presidential, George W. Bush should be at the top of the list.  After all, by hook or by crook, it’s his name on the letterhead.  But since his track record speaks for itself, let’s set him aside for now (and soon, mercifully, forever). 

We have two major party candidates running for President.  One of them, John McCain, has a chief foreign policy advisor who can’t be trusted to deal from the top of the deck because he pulled the cards out of the pocket of the Georgian President along with a big fat check for lobbying fees.  That individual has sided with Dick Cheney on the matter of the shooting war in Georgia, as in all things.  In 2008, that should generally be all you need to know about whether the person is right or wrong on an issue.  It’s like Foreign Policy GPS:  Look at your feet, look at Dick Cheney, and look for the line.  If the line is separating you from Dick Cheney, continue on with confidence.  If you and Dick Cheney are on the same side of the line, start walking toward it and don’t stop until you can look over your shoulder and no longer see the line or Dick Cheney.  Then proceed with confidence.  As has already been pointed out, Dick Cheney, John McCain, his foreign policy advisor Voldemort, and the rest of their disgusting, clueless ilk goaded Georgia into a shooting war with a large, nuclear-armed, belligerent neighbor that had them crying uncle less than two days later.  That is the very definition of bad foreign policy.  Apparently George Bush isn’t the only one who needs to check the batteries on his GPS…  But belligerence sells, I guess, and Mr. Goldberg is buying.

By contrast, Senator Obama delivered a forceful, measured statement on the conflict between Georgia and Russia which called upon both parties to stop fighting and called upon the international community to take strong steps to broker peace in the region.  That’s appropriate as a sitting Senator and it is appropriately measured for someone who isn’t actually the President (and wouldn’t want to appear too presumptuous or anything...).  That doesn’t work for Mr. Goldberg.  Apparently diplomatic decorum, restraint, and maintenance of some sense of balance and leverage, particularly when tragically bad policy has left us in a position of relative weakness internationally, means Barack Obama isn’t ready for primetime.  Apparently the irony of criticizing someone for their first vacation in 18 months but failing to see the comparison with a President who is on vacation more often than not is too difficult to grasp.  Apparently the fact that we don’t have enough troops to send into harm’s way to deter both sides from further bad acts is irrelevant.  Fools rush in, and that fact means that almost seven years after 9/11, we don’t have enough troops available to drive the Taliban and the perpetrators and plotters of those attacks out of Afghanistan and off the face of the Earth.  But since we can’t blame Obama for that, let’s not bring it up.  Someone might think McCain’s fingerprints are on the Pandora’s Box marked “Iraq.  Spring, 2003.”  Eight years of failed policy just isn’t enough, I guess.  Eight years of unintended consequences that could’ve easily been foreseen isn’t enough for Mr. Goldberg.  You dance with the one that brung ya, even if you were invited to an inaugural ball and ended up at Carrie’s prom…

This is not Rome.  We have ONE President right now.  Many of us don't like the one we have.  Most of us can't wait to see him go.  But that doesn't change the name on the letterhead.  The voters do.  We'll get our say in November.  Between now and then, the choices are impeachment or hoping that Dick and George and John and Randy don't do anything that a good President can't undo in the little time that they have left.  Perhaps Mr. Goldberg should stay out of this, but at the very least, he should check his Foreign Policy GPS.  "Turn left now..."