Security

The president seems to have left his heart in Jakarta, where he lived as a child in the late '60s. "Let me begin with a simple statement," he told his Indonesian hosts, "Indonesia is part of me." A nice sentiment, and visitors are expected to indulge in polite exaggeration in thanking their hosts. Mr. Obama continued with the usual diplomatic lies that diplomats count on nobody taking seriously, praising his hosts' "diversity, democracy and tolerance," citing Indonesia as a model for other countries. There was no need to go into the nation's brutal and bloody history; the ethnic cleansing that killed up to 1 million men, women and children; the suppression of those warm and friendly folk by corrupt and oppressive regimes.

The president just can't help himself when he gets amongst Muslims, many of whom take his treacly sentiments as telling evidence of weakness in the face of peril and provocation, proof of the "resolve" of the sappy West. He even indulged a ritual insult of the first lady, saying nothing when the Indonesian minister of communications shook Michelle's hand at a formal reception and then apologized for the sin and shame of having touched her: "I tried to prevent it with my two hands, but Mrs. Michelle [sic] moved her hands too close to me; then we touched." Actually, video footage shows the minister reaching eagerly for Mrs. Obama's outstretched hand, calculating that he could get the cheap thrill of touching the forbidden female flesh that sets Muslim imaginations ablaze. Muslim men have been accused of many things, but kindness and gallantry toward women are not among them.

He'll feel right at home in India. He hasn't had an opportunity to blow other people's money with abandon like this since he sent billions to General Motors and Chrysler. He could buy a round of champagne for everybody in India (minus the Muslims, of course, who could order orange blossoms without the vodka) with his spare millions.

Indian newspapers say the president and his party of 3,000 will spend $200 million a day in India alone (tips extra), including for things like stripping the coconuts from coconut palms in the president's path so he won't get a nasty bump on the head from a falling coconut. The White House says the estimates are nonsense, without mentioning either coconuts or specifics. An official of the Indian government working on the arrangements for the president's visit may be the source of the estimate. "A huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, [hotels] and other aspects of the presidential visit," he says. Everybody can agree the trip will cost a bundle, not all of it the president's fault, but he's taking along a lot of freeloaders.

Even a yellow dog - a Democrat who would vote for a yellow dog before he would consider voting Republican - seems leery this year of crawling out from under the porch. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, all but conceded the House Sunday to the Republicans, repeating the party line that only the Senate seems safe.

The New York Times, which has been trying mightily to cheer up the Democratic troops, now echoes Mr. Kaine's glum assessment. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee puts up a fundraising letter on the Internet pleading for dollars, quarters and even nickels and dimes to prevent a Senate blowout. "Keeping California blue is just about a requirement if we're going to keep the Senate," the committee said. A new poll shows Barbara Boxer, the Democratic incumbent, holding a shrinking polling lead, now down to 2 points, over Carly Fiorina.

The civilized world will always have Saudi Arabia — to which Barack Obama's Defense Department is about to sell $60 billion worth of new and improved weapons the Saudis can pay for but don't need — as the last line of defense against evildoers forever plotting to snuff out the candle of freedom.

Certain girlie men in the Pentagon, pushed by various community activists and connivers in Congress, have been trying to feminize the warrior class for years, first by finding ways to sneak women into combat and now by opening the ranks to homosexuals. The gay blades found a judge in California (where else?) to declare "don't ask, don't tell" unconstitutional, but enforcing the spirit of gay law won't be as easy as those who get their understanding of the military culture from Harvard seminars and congressional budget hearings imagine it will.

The prince has turned out to be the usual frog, a politician trying to spin his shortcomings as successes. A lot of people idolize a prince, but President Obama is learning that a frog is just something to step on.

Mr. Obama announced V-I Day this week, but if he expected to set off a victory celebration in Iraq, it sounded like something less than V-J Day that marked the end of World War II. There was the usual "rebranding" ceremony: Henceforth, the American effort in Iraq would be "Operation New Dawn." No more "Operation Iraqi Freedom." But that looked like only a paper moon over the ceremonies.

Some of the true believers in Arabia say the mosque is a conspiracy hatched by the Jews to set out a clear and permanent connection between Sept. 11 and Islam, a constant reminder of an attack on America led by devout Muslims. Dr. Abd al-Muti Bayumi, a prominent fellow of the Islamic Research Academy of Al Azhar, sometimes regarded as "the Vatican of Sunni Islam," says the construction of a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero is the child of a "devious mentality" to connect the dots of Sept. 11 and Islam, to stoke memories of barbarism in the name of Islam.

Another Arab notability, Dr. Amna Nazir, a professor of doctrine and philosophy at Al Azhar, calls "building a mosque on this rubble indicates bad intention — even if we wished to shut our eyes, close our minds and insist on good will." These are not the empty sentiments of good will and sensitivity so beloved of the girly men of the West. They're statements of concern that "Zionist conspiracy" aid in construction of the Ground Zero mosque will ultimately damage Islam. Dr. Bayumi, for one, preaches suicidal jihad to demonstrate that his heart is in the wrong place: "I say in all honesty that we recruit the people of Islam, and instill in them the spirit of the true jihad, which is death for the sake of Allah, for the sake of our faith."

His assistants with the big knives no longer try to disguise what they’re about. No more empty assurances that they’re merely taking out a swollen appendix or tightening a droopy eyelid. It’s time to carve, slash and slice.

Dr. Obama had to use a little presidential sleight of hand to get his surgeons in place, to appoint Donald Berwick to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services before even the dopiest Democrat in the Senate figured out who Doc Berwick really is, and learn that he’s got the itch to issue a rationing book to one and all as the first order of government health care.

The president and the general were doomed from the beginning to part ways. The general understood the war and thought he knew how to win it. The president thinks it's enough to give the war effort a lick and a promise, say some nice and inoffensive things about soldiers and sacrifice, and get out. He's got a community on his far left to organize.

Mr. Obama told us -- and more important, the unrepentant foe in Afghanistan -- all anyone needs to know in his famous speech at West Point when he promised to get the troops out by next summer -- not necessarily winning by next summer, but quitting by next summer. Good old Joe Biden, the vice president, added emphasis to the president's pledge when he told a magazine interviewer that "in July 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out [of Afghanistan], bet on it."

It's working, sort of, but only for the short run, which is sometimes enough to get a politician out of a rough patch. The public, being as frustrated as Mr. Obama, dutifully joins the mindless din of threats, imprecations, insults and other affronts to the only people, bad or not, who know how to cap a runaway oil well. Seeking relief in the short run is tempting because presidents, like fake messiahs and other con artists, come and go. The consequences of presidential calamities and catastrophes, like the destruction of the American health care system, stay with us well into the long run.

Anyone who listened to the president Wednesday night (his numbers were down considerably) could see and hear frustration in his voice. No one, not even a messiah, can watch his approval numbers plummet so dramatically and not feel frustration, and even a little fear. Mr. Obama has never given evidence of seeing himself as others see him, but even he must be aware that he is in a job requiring different skills than he has. Making pretty speeches, as entertaining as pretty speeches are, just doesn't get the job done. Oil wells just won't listen. Why wouldn't he feel the growing fear the rest of us do?

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations who rarely sees third-world evil, shocking or otherwise, says he was "shocked" by the Israeli navy's stopping a convoy attempting to break through the blockade of Islamist terrorists in Gaza. The governments of Sweden, Greece and Jordan were so "shocked" they recalled their ambassadors to Israel to get the inside dope to fuel further "shock." Tony Blair, who is some sort of "peacemaker"-at-large in the Middle East, was "shocked," too. If he is, it's only because he hasn't been in the Middle East long enough to unpack his Gladstone. France was not just a little bit "shocked," but "profoundly shocked." There was so much "shock" in the air that the mourning became electric.

The convoy of six ships not only carried thousands of tons of supplies, but hundreds of "activists" and when the smoke cleared nine or so "activists" -- the count varied through the day -- had been rendered "inactivists," and capable of no further mischief. The European Union demanded an official inquiry, so profound was its "shock." The United Nations went into emergency session to recover from "shock."