Sarkozy Wants More Realism From The President; Guantanamo To Stay Open For Now

French President Sarkozy not impressed with Obama's naive visions.

It reminds me of how Woodrow Wilson was scorned and mocked by European leaders for his "Wilsonian principles?"

Obama did look a little like a leader with his head in the sand at the UN. Seriously. Iran is way past dialog although I still wouldn't get tough with them just yet. Most of it is blustering from a blathering idiot. It's interesting they've conducted bomb tests on a Jewish holiday.

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Obama won't be closing Guantanamo on self-imposed prescribed date. This should come as no surprise to anyone with a moderate, practical and sensible way of looking at things. Obama wants to distinguish himself so badly from the previous administration it may very well be confusing him. You get the feeling his check list hasn't been scratched off and he's surprised by it.

We've seen enough of President Obama to form a decent opinion of what type of foreign policy he's looking for. It's less, at least it's my perception, an original one and more defined as not being the same as the previous administration. His tone is the correct one but are his visions realistic? I'm personally ok with it but there's something to be said about how your enemies perceive it.

One of his most passionate promises - in an effort to "repair" America's image - was to close down Guantanamo Bay. Why do I keep saying this to the tune of Guantanemera? Digression aside, this is not likely going to happen.

Each time I would hear the Guantanmo closing promise during his campaign days, it brought me back to my high school days and to a chap named Hans who was running for student council president. No one cared about fricken school politics but Hans sought to change all that. One day on the campaign trail, he visited our class to sell his platform. An intelligent and eloquent speaker - he stood about as high as James Madison - he made several promises. One in particular left us in stitches. So much so, we still talk about 20 years later. Hans, being the creative if not desperate soul, wanted to, well, raise the ceilings in the school. Something about poor air ventilation or whatever.

How in the world was he going to pull that off we wondered? Did he not grasp the work involved? Where were students going to go in the meantime? Where were the funds going to come from for such a huge project? Among many unanswered questions. Raised eyebrow remains.

Turns out, nations don't want to help out by taking some of these people, that there really are some bad people there and above all, given the number of detainees (220 in total) the review process and paper work involved dictated that it would be impossible to close it by the end of the year.

Health reform is not going well. Guantanamo is not going to close. Procrastinating on making a military decision on Afghanistan. Old "no world with weapons" speeches. Obama has to find something - fast.