Think I'm exaggerating? Then explain Obama's statements shortly after the 9/11 attacks, reported in the Hyde Park Herald Sept. 19, 2001: "We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine or connect with the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy … most often … grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

If Obama's own words aren't enough to convince you of his reckless appeasement mentality, let's look at the position of one of his senior advisors, Richard Danzig. According to the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, Danzig told the Center for a New American Security, "Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security."

Danzig believes we can draw lessons from the story to help us reframe our foreign policy toward the Arab world. "Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it." Danzig's other favorite source on terrorism is "Among the Thugs," a book about soccer violence in Britain.

Meanwhile, while the U.S. has reached out in sacred diplomacy to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the dictator has thumbed his nose at us, defiantly refusing to discontinue his uranium enrichment program. I suppose we need more empathy for him, too.

As we speak, Obama struts around Iraq with his signature arrogance and bereft of the shame he's earned for his insistence we withdraw in defeat there, pretending that history's repudiation of his surrender policy is a vindication of his prescience and wisdom. And they tell us President George W. Bush will never admit his mistakes!

How strangely paradoxical it would be if Barack Obama were to sail into the presidency on the strength of his own failures. Crazier things have happened.