Who's Causing Trouble Now?

I could have sworn that Barack Obama was committed to repairing the fabric of international relations that the President has supposedly rent so badly. In fact, isn't that the rationale that he offers for his willingness to negotiate personally with any enemy of America?

But if he's sincere in his desire to improve our "image" in the world, then why isn't Barack just a wee bit more concerned with the discomfort in Canada and Mexico over his anti-NAFTA, protectionist rhetoric? There's something uncomfortably Jimmy Carteresque in his eagerness to speak one-on-one with dictators like Kim Jung Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (without "preconditions" of any kind), even as he seems impervious to or indifferent about the possibility of straining our relationships with friends in our own hemisphere.