In an interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, former Bush adviser Karl Rove said he considers President Obama’s lax attitude towards interacting with world leaders to be appalling and that the “true Obama” is starting to show.
Obama is leaving his successor with a geopolitical mess, Rove said, and his failures can be blamed on both incompetence and a reluctance to work in the best interests of the U.S.
“I think today the president is governed more by what is his true vision and view of the world, in part,” said Rove.
“He views America as not a power for and an influence for good. He does believe the world is a better place if we withdraw and allow people to settle their own matters in whatever way they intend to settle them,” Rove said.
“We’re now seeing the real, true Obama.”
Rove compared how Obama interacts with world leaders versus how his former boss handled them.
“He’s not trying to develop a relationship with these foreign leaders,” Rove said of Obama. “And we wonder why we don’t have a good relationship or a manageable relationship with these difficult personalities, it’s because the president doesn’t even bother to talk to them.”
“Name me one foreign leader that jumps to mind that you think the President of the United States has a good relationship with?” Rove asked Hewitt.
Between the two of them, Rove and Hewitt decided that Obama “maybe” has a good relationship with David Cameron, the prime minister of the U.K.
Obama believes he is above managing those relationships with world leaders, Rove said.
“And this President [thinks] he is smarter than everybody else in the world and hence feels no necessity of reaching out and developing a rapport, and as a result the United States suffers,” Rove said.
Rove also claimed that Obama is disengaged.
“The current President of the United States is not engaged in what he needs to be engaged in,” said Rove, taking Obama to task for having intelligence reports provided in writing rather than being delivered by briefers.
“He has set in motion a whole series of things over the last six years, that are now becoming visible, and their import is becoming understandable and they are going to take the next president a long time to deal with.”
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