THE MEDIA COVERED FOR OBAMA’S INCOMPETENCE LIKE IT COVERED FOR NOBODY SINCE AT LEAST FDR: Jamie Kirchik: Critics of the Trump administration’s foreign policy have forgotten the mistakes and misjudgments of its predecessor:

This was the constant, tediously narcissistic background music of the Obama presidency—that his youth and personal sympathy for those who perceive themselves to be the victims of American global hegemony somehow obviated the forces of history and ideology and culture, never mind what other nations perceived to be in their national interest. The Obamians’ determinist view of history could not recognise that the Cuban communists lock up independent journalists because the stale doctrine of Marxist-Leninism demands it; that Iran pledges “Death to Israel” because it sincerely seeks it, that the men in the Kremlin acquire actual glory from the serial humiliations they inflict upon Russia’s smaller neighbours; and that these phenomena derive from cultures and ideologies that will not be attenuated by American apologies and appeasement.