Read the whole thing.
"Often, members of the Obama administration speak and, worse, think and
act, like a bunch of teenagers. When officials roll their eyes at
Vladimir Putin's
seizure of Crimea with the line that this is "19th-century
behavior," the tone is not that different from a disdainful remark about
a hairstyle being "so 1980s." When administration members find
themselves judged not on utopian aspirations or the purity of their
motives—from offering "hope and change" to stopping global warming—but
on their actual accomplishments, they turn sulky. As teenagers will,
they throw a few taunts (the president last month said the GOP was
offering economic policies that amount to a "stinkburger" or a
"meanwich") and stomp off, refusing to exchange a civil word with those
of opposing views."
"Like self-obsessed teenagers, the staffers
and their superiors seemed to forget that there were other people in the
room who might take offense, or merely see the world differently.
Teenagers expect to be judged by intentions and promise instead of by
accomplishment, and their style can be encouraged by irresponsible
adults (see: the Nobel Prize committee) who give awards for perkiness
and promise rather than achievement."
"If
the United States today looks weak, hesitant and in retreat, it is in
part because its leaders and their staff do not carry themselves like
adults. They may be charming, bright and attractive; they may have the
best of intentions; but they do not look serious."
"They act as though
Twitter and clenched teeth or a pout could stop invasions or rescue
kidnapped children in Nigeria. They do not sound as if, when saying that
some outrage is "unacceptable" or that a dictator "must go," that they
represent a government capable of doing something substantial—and, if
necessary, violent—if its expectations are not met. And when reality, as
it so often does, gets in the way—when, for example, the Syrian regime
begins dousing its opponents with chlorine gas, as it has in recent
weeks, despite solemn deals and red lines—the administration ignores it,
hoping, as teenagers often do, that if they do not acknowledge a
screw-up no one else will notice."
