Washington Times: Obama sidelined as player in summits

[Patricia M. McBride]

And he will be surprised that his getting our credit rating lowered, having none of his give away programs fix the economy or taking our country nearly off a cliff will not garner him the respect all his Washington cronies have told him he deserves......................no one in Europe was listening the last time he tried to push them into useless spending, and certainly the PM of Germany isn't going to buy in to a bunch of Obama's failed programs.

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G-8, NATO set for this weekend

As President Obama prepares to play host to a doubleheader of global diplomacy at the Group of Eight and NATO summits this weekend, there are increasing signs that the world is tuning out his message.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is skipping the G-8 meeting that begins Friday at Camp David, Md., a startling display of disrespect for Mr. Obama, foreign policy analysts say. The just-elected Mr. Putin has said he needs time to put his Cabinet of advisers together, dispatching Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to the U.S. as his surrogate.

French voters gave the bum’s rush this month to Mr. Obama’s ally, President Nicolas Sarkozy, in favor of socialist Francois Hollande, who campaigned in part on a pledge to withdraw France’s 3,400 troops from Afghanistan sooner than Mr. Obama desires.

Then there’s the European debt crisis, which only has deepened since Mr. Obama urged the Continent’s leaders to solve their problems last November at a conference in France. But U.S. officials have been largely sidelined in the European debate, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, head of the eurozone’s most powerful economy, embracing a policy of economic austerity largely opposed in Washington.

At the Camp David summit, observers say, Mr. Obama will have little leverage over Europe’s fiscal emergency, while the economic slowdown across the Atlantic still could engulf the United States before the November elections.

“We’re not in this game,” said Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington. “We’re sitting on the bleachers a bit.”

Some observers even question the need for the G-8 anymore, given that the Group of 20 industrialized nations has taken a more prominent role in addressing global economic issues.

Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted that the G-8, which includes traditional industrial powers plus Russia, doesn’t include such “important voices” as China, South Korea, Australia, Turkey, Brazil or India. He called the G-8 “a body that’s a little bit betwixt and between.”

Read more here:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/16/obama-sidelined-as-...