OBAMA AT THE UN - ANYONE INTERESTED? – AT 9:34 A.M. ET:  President Obama addresses the UN General Assembly today.  At one time an Obama speech before the UN was presented by the world's press as a godlike figure coming to speak to mere mortals.  No longer. 

Obama's foreign policy is a mess.  Even the Palestinian Authority, which gets half a billion in American aid each year, thumbs its nose at this weak president.  Obama, as much for domestic as for policy reasons, is trying to head off a reckless attempt by the PALS to have the UN declare them a state without directly negotiating terms with the Israelis.  They wouldn't have tried this with Bush as president:

NEW YORK (AP) - Scrambling to head off a diplomatic clash, President Barack Obama will publicly push for the Palestinians to drop a statehood bid when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

Obama will follow up his speech with separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders as he seeks to coax both parties back to direct peace talks.

At the same time, U.S. officials are conceding that they probably cannot prevent Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from moving forward with a request to the U.N. Security Council for full Palestinian membership.

Recognizing that Abbas seems intent to proceed, Obama is expected to privately ask the Palestinian leader to essentially drop the move for statehood recognition after Abbas delivers a formal letter of intent to the U.N. on Friday.

"The president will say, frankly, the same thing in private that he'll say in public, which is that we do not believe that this is the best course of action for achieving Palestinian aspirations," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.

Obama will also meet Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Obama administration has pledged to veto any Palestinian statehood bid, arguing that only direct peace negotiations, not a U.N. vote, would allow the Palestinians to achieve the benefits of statehood.

Meanwhile, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N, called the Palestinian push for recognition by the world body "an unwise and diversionary gambit."

"There is no shortcut to statehood," she said Wednesday morning in an interview on CBS's "The Early Show."

COMMENT:  The fact is, other nations feel they can run all over Obama, and that's especially true in the Mideast.  After all, this is a president who snubbed the Israeli prime minister, but bowed deeply to a Saudi king.  Not good stuff.

The president is also, in some bizarre remarks, taking credit for success in the Libyan venture, even though Gadaffi is still alive in Libya and we don't know what shape any new government will have.  Remember how Bush was ridiculed for the "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him in the first days after the initial victory in Iraq?  Apparently, Obama doesn't need a banner to make the same mistake.

September 21, 2011