America's weakness affects its friends, but aren't we all getting along now? Nay, not so much.

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

The superficial circumstances are similar. In both cases, a United States in financial crisis and after failed wars loses global influence under a leftist president whose good intentions are interpreted abroad as expressions of weakness. The results are reflected in the fall of regimes that were dependent on their relationship with Washington for survival, or in a change in their orientation, as with Ankara.

America's general weakness clearly affects its friends.

Haaretz

Obama will go down in history as the president who lost Egypt

Best SOTU Response

Obama said, "We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook."

And then the government outlawed Edison's great invention, made the Wright brothers' air travel insufferable, filed anti-trust charges against Microsoft and made cars too expensive to drive by prohibiting oil exploration, and right now -- at this very minute -- is desperately trying to regulate the Internet.

Ann Coulter

From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?

Charles Krauthammer

China Keeping the Lights On

Of course President Obama is being nice to China. After all, now that the government has gotten involved in choosing your light bulbs for you we don't make any light bulbs here anymore. If we want to keep the lights on we need China to keep sending them to us.

God forbid we ever end up in a serious war with China it will be lights out literally.
DKK