Noting Hillary Clinton’s “pragmatism” during her tour of Asia and the Middle East (second item), The Stiletto saw the outlines of the emerging Obama Fist Bump Doctrine: “Never mind what I said about unclenching your fist. Gimme a fist bump!” Here’s how some other wags and pundits decipher President Barack Obama’s words and deeds during the recent G-20 Summit and the Fifth Summit of the Americas:

† According to McCain-Palin campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, the administration is pursuing the "Seinfeld Doctrine" and doing “exactly the opposite of what Bush would do” – inspired by the episode (video link) where George Costanza succeeds beyond his wildest dreams by doing the opposite of everything his instincts tell him to do.

† Columnist Ben Shapiro thinks The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne doesn’t have it quite right when he defines "the Obama Doctrine" as “seek[ing] to regain the world's sympathy by acknowledging that while the United States is a great nation built on worthy principles, it is not perfect":

There's a shorter way to phrase the Obama Doctrine: "Don't blame me." …

Obama seems to believe that if he just discards American history - if he apologizes for our actions in Europe, in Latin America, in the Muslim world - the rest of the world will offer America a clean slate. That demonstrates, first and foremost, a tremendous lack of pride in America's legacy of freedom and liberty around the globe. America generally needs a clean slate far less than any other country on the face of the earth.

[T]he Obama Doctrine demonstrates Obama's massively overweening sense of self-importance. Foreign leaders are not idiots - if they sense they can elicit concessions from America simply by inflating Obama's confidence, they'll do it.  …

The Obama Doctrine is a mea culpa for America from a self-obsessed president who puts himself before country. And it's a godsend for America's enemies.

† Of Obama’s trip to Turkey earlier this month, Los Angeles Times columnist Christi Parsons notes, he “hugged his way across Europe and Turkey in recent days, the visual images clearly showed a president trying hard to build personal relationships with his foreign counterparts” – but to little avail:

The early score card doesn't immediately vindicate the approach. Obama returned home Wednesday with commitments from other nations to spur the global economy through government spending, but they are smaller than the U.S. wanted. Nor did leaders rush to send new combat troops to Afghanistan to support the mission there.

† The Washington Post’s  Dan Balz predicts that “President Obama's weekend of summitry in Latin America will be remembered most for his cordial encounter with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.” And only time will tell if it proves disasterous:

The affable exchange drew criticism from Dick Cheney and other Republicans as irresponsible and an equally stiff defense from the president and his spokesman as appropriate. The underlying question is whether Obama's new style will make the United States stronger or weaker as the administration confronts a series of intractable problems around the world.

Does Obama's desire to deal more respectfully with leaders hostile to the United States make him more or less likely to carry out effective negotiations to achieve his strategic goals? Will Americans conclude over time that his approach to global threats makes the United States safer than under George W. Bush's presidency or less safe? …

The opening rounds of his diplomatic outreach to the world provide no real answers to the bigger questions. In time, it will be clearer whether Obama's approach produces different results with Iran or North Korea or elsewhere. He benefits now from the backlash against Bush's presidency. In time, his foreign policy will have to stand on its own record.

Nuclear wannabes Iran and North Korea seem unswayed by Obama’s charms thus far – and everyone from former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are complaining about “mixed messages” from the Obama administration. In the meantime, Pakistan, a country that already has nuclear weapons, is teetering on the edge of falling into the Taliban’s hands while the U.S. response seems increasingly panic-stricken about that inevitable 3 a.m. phone call.

Never Send A Beauty Queen Out To Do A Columnist’s Job

Though he probably did not have it in mind when we was pecking away at his keyboard, Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman fleshes out Perez Hilton’s explanation (second item) of why other states will not necessarily follow VT to legalize gay marriage (“ … that is a question that each state should decide for themselves, because that is how our forefathers designed our government. … the states rule themselves and then there’s certain laws which are federal.”):
 

It's at moments like this that the framers of the Constitution begin to look even wiser than usual. Somehow they anticipated that people in Massachusetts would not want to live under exactly the same laws as people in Mississippi. So they set up a system known as federalism, which allows different states to choose different policies. Thus we simultaneously uphold majority rule and minority rights.

This, at least, is how federalism is supposed to operate - letting subsets of the national population get their way in their own locales. There's only one hitch: In this case, it doesn't quite work that way.

Why not? Because of a huge imbalance created by that longtime nemesis of state sovereignty - the federal government. Under the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Virginia has complete authority to deny the privileges and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex partners. But Iowa doesn't have the complete authority to grant them. …

"In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States," says DOMA, "the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife."

That decree may sound reasonable: Since most Americans and most states reject same-sex marriage, federal policy should as well. But it conflicts with how the nation has handled marriage up till now, which is to leave it up to individual states to decide who may wed - and then honor those diverse choices.

Granted, Perez needed to keep his answer to 60 seconds or less, but his CliffsNotes version of federalism was tolerably accurate thus in the brouhaha between the beauty and the beast, the beast won on substance while the beauty won on style and character. Sorry, but The Stiletto’s gotta call it as she sees it.

Larry Summers Stays Awake Through Fox News Sunday Interview!

Chris Wallace: You were spotted at that meeting with credit card executives. It sure looked like you were falling asleep. Question: Do you find President Obama’s speeches less than compelling, sir?

Larry Summers: Chris, you know, it’s kind of like I was thinking about the fine print on some of those credit card disclosures, which is written boring enough to put you to sleep. And President Obama wants us all to fulfill our American dreams, and I guess I was starting that day.

CW: But you know, you’ve been - you’ve been a serial dozer, because you were spotted at an earlier meeting - are you not getting enough sleep, sir?

LS: We’re all working very hard in this administration, Chris, because we think that we want to support the president in what is a tremendous responsibility that he has to get this economy growing again and to again establish a period when family incomes are rising.

CW: Did the president rib you?

LS: Oh, we’ve all joked about American dreams in various ways.

CW: Mr. Summers, thank you. Thanks for talking with us. Work hard and please, sir, get some rest.

However, Summers – a guy whom you apparently can neither dress up nor take out – seemingly burped during this exchange with Wallace over the possibility and repercussions of a Chrysler bankruptcy (just about five minutes into the clip below):

CW: How do you view a Chrysler bankruptcy? How damaging would it be to the economy?

LS: As I say, we’re hopeful that it’s going to work out, and it’s not really right to[burp!] get into answering hypothetical questions. 

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming …

The New York Post reports that ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC are groaning at the thought of yet another primetime press conference by President Barack Obama - his fourth since Inauguration Day. To make matters worse, lucrative sweeps week programming will have to be pre-empted:
 

But programmers are starting to act peeved at Obama's primetime interruptions - one a month since January - because every speech and press conference results in a loss of ad revenue and scheduling problems.

Assuming a 30-second primetime spot runs an average of $150,000, media buyers estimate it costs the broadcast networks a combined $10 million per hour. The economy has already crimped TV ad revenue. …

In his first 100 days in office, former President George W. Bush preempted primetime only once, for his State of the Union Address.

FOX is not going along with Obama’s self-indulgence at the expense of its bottom line, and announced that it is skipping Obama’s primetime press conference on Wednesday to air its May sweeps programming at 8 pm ET, reports TV Guide, though FOX News Channel and the FOX Business Network will carry the address live. ABC is scrubbing “Scrubs” and “Better Off Ted”; NBC is ditching a “Law & Order” repeat; FOX will air “Lie to Me” and “American Idol”; and CBS has not announced as of this posting whether it will air the new episodes of “Rules of Engagement” and “Old Christine” as that  scheduled to air, as originally planned.

A Post-Coital Cigarette

A study published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Functions suggests that nicotine may alter activity in those areas of the brain areas that tamp down  anger and other negative emotions when a person is provoked. 
 

President Barack Obama is a long-time smoker who was repeatedly unsuccessful in kicking the habit on the campaign trail, so the psychotropic effects of nicotine may be the secret to his oft-commented upon calmness and unflappability – this adulatory Associated Press article by Liz Sidoti being one of the more extreme cases in point (emphasis, The Stiletto):

It didn't take long for Barack Obama - for all his youth and inexperience - to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis.

"I feel surprisingly comfortable in the job," the nation's 44th president said a mere two weeks after taking the helm. …

Over nearly 100 days as president, Obama has applied the same "no drama" leadership and calculated approach to governing that he did to campaigning. …

Obama has seemed extraordinarily at ease as president from the day he took office - after a campaign in which he made a once skeptical electorate comfortable with the notion that a black, 47-year-old, first-term senator with limited experience could take over as the leader of the free world. …

For the past three months, Obama has spoken in firm, yet soothing tones. …

Overall, Obama seems unflappable.

What an orgy of adoration. Wonder if Sidoti enjoyed a cigarette afterward. Is it too much to ask that Sidoti refrain from having her orgasms in public?