President No

Barack Obama is President No. And not because he says no a lot. It's because he's the president who takes no for an answer--again and again and again. It's now his presidential trademark.

The "no" he received from the International Olympic Committee last week was only the latest and most embarrassing of a parade of no's. The president traveled to Copenhagen to plead the case for Chicago as the site of the 2016 summer Olympic games. He pleaded passionately. White House aides believed success was all but guaranteed. Then Chicago was knocked out in the first round of IOC voting. Rio de Janeiro won.

Friends and enemies--they all say no to Obama. He demanded that Israel put a freeze on West Bank settlements. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said no. Obama relented and called for Israeli-Palestinian talks. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said no. Meanwhile, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia said no when Obama personally asked him to make a friendly gesture toward Israel if settlements were curtailed.

NATO allies in Europe said no when Obama asked them to take some of the terrorists held in Guantánamo off his hands. They said no when he requested they send more troops to Afghanistan. France and Germany said no when Obama urged them to boost economic stimulus spending. An official in Scotland said no when asked to halt the release of the Libyan convicted of killing 190 Americans, and 80 other nationals, in the airline bombing over Lockerbie.

Remember when Obama urged Cuba to soften its dictatorship? Fidel Castro answered with an emphatic no. Or when he demanded tiny Honduras put its deposed president back in office? Honduras said no. Or when he asked Russia to accept an antimissile system in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at Iran? Russia said nyet (and the idea was scrapped). Or when Obama said NAFTA, the free trade treaty, should be reopened? Mexico and Canada said no. Russia, by the way, said yes to tougher sanctions on Iran before retreating toward no.

Obama gets no for an answer at home, too. He asked former Virginia governor Doug Wilder to endorse the Democratic candidate for governor this year. Wilder said no. He, or at least his White House, asked Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak not to run against Arlen Specter for the Senate next year. Sestak said no. He said Democrats should kill a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill. They said no.

Should we dismiss all this negativity as inconsequential? Does it simply reflect the way the world works in 2009? Is Obama just unlucky? THE SCRAPBOOK is reminded of the "Dysfunction" poster marketed on the Internet a few years back, depicting a chain with a broken link and this bit of wisdom: "The only consistent feature of all your dissatisfying relationships is you."

Friedman's Nausea

Thomas ( The World Is Flat) Friedman wrote one of his more-in-sorrow-than-anger columns last week in the New York Times, warning that conservative opposition to Barack Obama's legislative agenda reminds him of the ominous weeks in Israel before the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

"Others have already remarked on this analogy," he intoned, without identifying the others, "but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach."

Well, as readers of THE SCRAPBOOK are aware, Friedman's stomach is easily turned: He has a healthy appetite for the enlightened leadership of the -People's Republic of China, but feels pangs of nausea at the sight of democratic dissent from the Obama administration. "Sometimes I wonder," he says, "whether George H.W. Bush, '41,' will be remembered as our last 'legitimate' president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 .  .  . [and] George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it."

Up to a point, Lord Friedman--whose memory appears to be less durable than his stomach. For THE SCRAPBOOK remembers that, as far as the left was concerned, George H.W. Bush was an illegitimate president, too. Remember the "Willie Horton" television ads, which told the story of a Massachusetts murderer, who while on furlough from prison raped a woman in Maryland? (Bush's 1988 rival Michael Dukakis defended the furlough program.) THE SCRAPBOOK remembers that, in surprisingly respectable circles, highlighting the rapist-murderer Willie Horton made George H.W. Bush an illegitimate president.

Then there was the B-list Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan, described by Garry Wills during his presidency as the tool of a consortium of malevolent Los Angeles millionaires. In the pages of the New York Times itself, Reagan was accused of secretly dispatching his 1980 vice presidential candidate, George H.W. Bush, to Paris to meet with representatives of the Ayatollah Khomeini to ensure that American diplomats were held hostage until after the election. The "October surprise" myth rendered Reagan's presidency illegitimate.

Or consider Reagan's predecessor, Gerald Ford, who, as the Times repeatedly pointed out, had been appointed, not elected, to the vice presidency by Richard Nixon, who not only was compelled to resign after Watergate but, in 1968, had sent a secret emissary (Claire Chennault) to Paris, and the Vietnam peace talks, to prevent any settlement before the election. All untrue, of course--but that first "October surprise" rendered Nixon illegitimate as well.

So THE SCRAPBOOK is obliged to remind Thomas Friedman that a little delving into the recent past might soothe his aching stomach, that the last president to be shot at was the aforementioned Ronald Reagan (and Gerald Ford, before him), and that the last American president actually to be assassinated was murdered by a left-wing crank and friend of the Soviet Union who ran his local chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

Sentences We Didn't Finish

"He may have bigger challenges now and in years to come, but nothing will endear Barack Obama to some of us more than his decision to take a quick transatlantic round trip to lobby the International Olympic Committee on behalf of Chicago's bid to be the host city of the 2016 Summer Games. I'm astonished that some carping critics .  .  . " ("Hail to the Booster in Chief," David S. Broder, Washington Post, October 1).

The (Rare) Wit of Richard M. Nixon

Yes, President Nixon, it turns out, sometimes had a light touch with a putdown. Yes, we were astonished, too.

Edward Cox, Nixon's son-in-law, is taking on the thankless task of chairman of New York's Republican party, which occasioned a profile in the New York Times last week. Before marrying Tricia Nixon, Cox had been one of the original Nader's Raiders. Nader related to Times reporter Danny Hakim his encounter with Nixon in the receiving line at the couple's 1971 Rose Garden marriage:

"When I get to Nixon he says, 'How's Raiders Naders?' I said, 'Mr. President, it's "Nader's Raiders." ' " The president, Mr. Nader went on, added: "We were talking about you last night when our toaster broke down. Maybe it should have been recalled!"

Perhaps the only thing more astonishing than Nixon's deft skewering of Nader's legendary self-importance is that Nader has told a story at his own expense.

Vive Sarkozy!

Upset at France's reluctance to back the Iraq war, some conservatives took to calling French fries "freedom fries." In view of President Sarkozy's toughness (in marked contrast to Barack Obama) on Iran's nuclear ambitions, THE SCRAPBOOK would like to suggest it is only fair that we now begin calling them pommes frites.