Obama's Star Power at Copenhagen

Oh joy. Winter snow has come, and Obama is off to Copenhagen to save whales, trees and snail darters from pollutants from cars, coal fire and bovine flatulence. An ABC commentator assured us last night that all will be well because Obama is bringing his “star power”.
I thought about that for a moment. Presidential star power. That and fifty cents is liable to get you a local phone call—from an international conference. I’m still not totally sure global warming is the sole consequence of human action, but I have some thoughts on “star power”.
The first president to go abroad glorying in his star power was Woodrow Wilson, on his way to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, bearing his fourteen points. Common folk cheered him throughout his tour of the western allies.
He should have been warned. The French Premier, Clemenceau, made a comment Wilson should have listened to—“God gave us Ten Commandments; we didn’t do well with them. We shall see how we shall do with Mr. Wilson’s fourteen.”
The serious power brokers—Orlando, Lloyd George and Clemenceau—shredded the Fourteen Points beyond recognition and, when Wilson got back to the States, an angry Republican Senate finished the job by refusing to ratify the bowdlerized treaty in any form.
Wilson spent his last four years totally incapacitated by the stroke that knocked him down while he made one last effort to use his star power and do an end run around the Senate by going to the people. So much for star power.
Kennedy took his (and Jackie’s) star power to Paris in 1961 to meet Russia’s Khrushchev. The old Russian (who had personally ordered the deaths of more people than Himmler ever did) was unimpressed. If you had access to a photo morgue, as I did, you could see the contempt on Khrushchev’s face as they talked.
He went home and built the Berlin Wall—something he had wanted to do, but never dared, throughout most of the Eisenhower Presidency. (Ike had serious star power. Along with his grin came the reputation for killing half-a-million women and children in a single bombing raid. That’s star power even the most cynical and vicious pay attention to.)
Reagan had a kind of star power too. Yes, he was a movie actor and, yes, he knew how to play an audience—but he also had all sorts of scientists and military types hard at work on a space weapons platform that everybody thought we just might build.
When he went to talk to the Soviets, they made nice to him. He was charming, but he was also dangerous. Cassius Clay/Mohammad Ali had star power—and he left a trail of unconscious people behind him. You didn’t mess with him.
And, we have a recent demonstration of just how much Obama’s star power is really worth. Oh, they cheered him (like Wilson) when he arrived in Europe during last year’s campaign. After all, he wasn’t Bush and he was promising to cease fire in the Middle East and close down Guantanamo Bay Prison—so they threw the confetti.
A couple of month’s ago both he and Michelle flew to Olympic Heaven to get the games for Chicago. He neglected to bring the fifty cents. The Olympics are on their way to Rio in 2016. Oh well, he tried. What will they talk him into in Copenhagen?
If a majority of the 191 other players there decide to do something absolutely against our interests, will Obama’s star power—that’s rushing health care through Congress right now—enable him to force a compromise or a better deal? Wanna bet?
ABC didn’t comfort me a bit last night.