From Libya to partisanship, it’s never, ever my fault-----Obama speech today on the BBC news

Barack Obama Photo: 

To hear Barack Obama tell it, his

career trajectory from backbencher in

the Illinois state legislature to

president of the United States has

gone flawlessly. It’s everyone else

who’s let him down.

Behold the Immaculate 

Administration — conceived in

sinlessness and discharged with

purity of heart. If only others would

pull their load.

After all, it can’t be his fault that,

seven years on, the economy is still

a mess, the national debt is pushing

$20 trillion, Russia is gobbling up

bits of central Europe and his

handling of the Middle East has sent

a tidal wave of Muslim “refugees”

streaming toward the heart of Europe

while ISIS builds a caliphate, can it?

Obama bashed former French

president Nicolas Sarkozy for glory-

hogging, and blamed the Libyans for

an excess of tribalism “greater than

our analysts had expected.”

But he saved his greatest scorn for a

“distracted” conservative British

prime minister David Cameron who,

Obama said, simply stopped paying

attention, allowing Libya to become

“a s – -t show.”

David CameronPhoto:

That undiplomatic but typical Obama

wisecrack forced the White House to

quickly scramble for its long-lost

reset button, affirming through

clenched teeth how much it “deeply

values” America’s “close partner.”

It’s nice to see that two terms as

president has not dented Obama’s

unshakeable faith in himself.

Speaking of those eight years,

Obama also disavowed any

responsibility for the country’s

increased polarization over that

period.

Those things he naturally blames on

the evil Republicans and a (largely

imaginary) hostile media. Nor is he

responsible for the unexpected rise

and continuing appeal of Donald

Trump, who embodies the manifest

resentment of millions of Americans.

“It’s fair to say that the Republican

political elites and many of the

information outlets have been

feeding the Republican base for the

last seven years a notion that

everything I do is to be opposed, that

cooperation or compromise somehow

is a betrayal,” he said in a Thursday

news conference.

But as long as the president’s

definition of “compromise” is “do it

my way,” it’s hard to grasp the

concept of legitimate opposition,

much less a loyal opposition.

As the Immaculate Administration

nears its end, this is perhaps the

most valuable lesson it can bequeath

to its successor: let him who is

without sin cast the first stone.

Case in point: Libya.

Obama made a great show of

“leading from behind” when the 2009

Nobel Peace Prize winner ordered

regime change there in concert with

European allies.

Everything would have been just fine,

but — wouldn’t you know it — those

darn foreigners let the president

down. As he told Jeffrey Goldberg in

a far-ranging apologia in the Atlantic

this month: “When I go back and I

ask myself what went wrong, there’s

room for criticism, because I had

more faith in the Europeans, given

Libya’s proximity, being invested in

the follow-up.”