Op-Ed: Obama’s Asian Trip A Complete Failure

The most conceited White House in memory thinks it is making history in Asia. Instead, President Obama is completing his longest foreign trip with no real accomplishments to show for himself-and a reinforced image as a weak leader in over his head.

As with so many of their undertakings, President Obama and his team have judged their practice of foreign policy with ample self-appreciation. Beginning with his secretary of state and echoed widely by other officials, the Obama administration declared repeatedly that the U.S. "is back in Asia." The evidence supplied for this claim is the frequency by which officials have been shuttled across the Pacific for meetings that accomplish little but invariably are touted as "unprecedented."

Thus while there has been no progress in interactions between Mr. Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao on any key issue, a National Security Council official breathlessly declared to the media: "it's unprecedented in terms of the number of meetings and contacts that they've had."