Poles Apart

Krakow, Poland

Conventional wisdom is that with the Obama administration in office relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world–particularly with our European allies–had no place to go but up. European nations, we were told, would be deliriously happy with a president who never hesitates to apologize for “American hubris and aggression abroad.” Obama’s view of the world was rated as being far more enlightened than that of his predecessor who, according to the chattering classes, believed “most nations only fall into two categories–those to be invaded and those to be ignored.”