Between the rock concert and golf, where was the leadership?

Thanks to a slew of gaffes, blunders, miscalculations and alarming personality revelations, Obama has become a surprising liability where our reputation abroad is concerned - surprising not only because he was elected, in part, to restore our supposedly damaged image overseas, but also because he was touted as a smooth and charming diplomat.

But whatever generosities we afforded the inexperienced junior senator from Illinois, smooth and charming he is not, it turns out. And these rookie mistakes are getting downright embarrassing.

The latest came last week, when the President sent the G-20 a pointed but pleading letter imploring Europe to quit it already with all the sensible spending cuts. He apparently believes that if we are going to spend our way into oblivion, then Europe should have the good manners to join us. Misery loves company, after all, and so does bankruptcy.

It's unlikely Europe was moved. In fact, Germany and Britain, which just announced major spending cuts, are probably laughing at us, with a sharp view of Greece in their rearview mirror. Obama's letter wasn't only myopic but terribly arrogant - the kind of thing that would have earned his predecessor another colorful "cowboy" descriptor from the oft-offended liberal press.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico hasn't put the White House in a good light, either. For an administration that famously refuses to let a good crisis go to waste, its total failure to capitalize on an opportunity to show real leadership is perplexing, to say the least. Promising to kick someone's ass in between a rock concert and a round of golf is not, it turns out, a very impressive show of political agility.

In Britain, where our once-special relationship is growing increasingly ordinary, Tory Lord Tebbit called Obama's ineffective response to the BP oil spill "a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political presidential petulance." The staggering alliteration aside, those are some harsh words. And Maureen Dowd, The New York Times' usually fawning Obamafan, called him "bloodless" and "self-destructive." Yikes.

But these are just the latest in a string of global embarrassments, the kinds that were supposed to be a relic of the previous administration. Our self-righteous reaction to Israel's flotilla incident earned us some much-deserved scorn from Israel, which apparently cannot defend herself (or even build condos in East Jerusalem) without Obama's express permission.

The President's tepid response to Iran's and North Korea's nuclear promises undoubtedly has the leaders of both nations in stitches as they try not to lose sleep over the threat of . . . drumroll . . . more sanctions. We hardly need to impress Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but it would be nice if they were just a little afraid of us.

Also embarrassing is Obama's audacity in Afghanistan, where he's haughtily asking for more international support while simultaneously chirping on about our looming withdrawal date. It appears that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who delivered shockingly candid (and highly inappropriate) remarks to Rolling Stone about the President, isn't particularly pleased with Obama, either.

I thought Obama was finally going to make us look good. Starting when? For his sake, let's hope it's in time for his reelection bid in 2012, when his critics are likely to point out that our enemies are still our enemies, and so, too, are some of our former friends.