Major report on Obama’s foreign policy doctrine irks some in press

“The … piece should have been titled ‘Portrait of an Amateur As An Angry Aging Failing Man,'” said talk radio host Hugh Hewitt said Thursday.

Bloomberg View’s Toby Harshaw added elsewhere, “Pro tip: If you’re kind of person who has to blame everything on everybody else, you probably shouldn’t be president.”

“President Obama is very, very disappointed in all of you,” said political commentator David Frum.

The article, titled “The Obama Doctrine: The U.S. president talks through his hardest decisions about America’s role in the world,” looks at everything from the president’s failure to make good on his promise of action is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his people, the to his belief that climate change is a bigger threat to America than the Islamic State.

At the heart of the report, which was published Thursday, is a close examination of the president’s own pithy foreign policy motto: “Don’t do stupid sh*t.”

Though this tickled some media, it left others wincing, especially as it relates to the United States’ relationship with Israel.

“Among many reveals: Obama does not see why US should still guarantee Israel’s qualitative military edge. Explosive,” said Frum.

Another section of the lengthy report that drew boos from some in the press is its recounting of the time that Obama butted heads with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

She lobbied him ahead of his Nobel Prize speech in 2009 to include the doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” which holds that an able country has a moral duty to intercede if another is slaughtering innocent people.

Obama pushed back, explaining that he doesn’t believe in this doctrine, but Power, who praised the doctrine in her 2002 book, “A Problem From Hell,” persisted.

That set the tone. They often came to disagreements, sometimes in front of other National Security Council officials. During one, the president snapped at her peevishly, saying, “Samantha, enough, I’ve already read your book.”

“In general, the Obama-Power relationship doesn’t seem great,” Politico’s Michael Crowly said.

Then there was the president’s on-the-record griping about the so-called “foreign-policy think-tank complex.”

Along with this anecdote, as well as other unflattering tidbits, including Obama openly saying German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the only world leader he respects, some in media were left with a bad taste in their mouth.

“Obama came to office promising to mend alliances. Leaves offices insulting important allies by name,” said political commentator David Frum.

Others simply underscored the more unflattering passages from the story.

“Obama has basically nothing nice to say about Cameron,” noted the Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez.

The article itself, written by the Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg, drew high praise from media, as reporters and pundits alike marveled at the level of detail included in his 20,000 deep dive into the Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy.