But there’s his Peace Prize.

"How am I doing?"

--Ex New York Mayor Ed Koch

Maybe not so good:

1. Commenting on Obama’s inability thus far to tame Iran, Russia, or China, National Review editor Rich Lowry writes:

George W. Bush put too much faith in oppressed people - their ability and willingness to rise up for freedom[.] Barack Obama puts too much faith in their oppressors. . .

the administration's self-described "smart power" has -- to borrow an old gibe about the Moral Majority -- proven to be neither.

2. On health care, the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that 49% of respondents would urge their member of Congress to vote against health care legislation. Only 44% would urge a vote for it.

3. Climate change is headed for very rough sailing after hundreds of hacked emails, according to the Wall Street Journal,

give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.

4. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s November 5 killing of 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas needs to be branded for what it is—the second
successful Muslim terrorist attack on American soil since 9.11.01 (the first was in Arkansas June 1). There will be a trial, and Hasan may plead insanity, but the plea won’t work. Hasan knew what he was doing—killing infidels as fellow Islamic extremists around the world routinely do in their ongoing “holy war” against the values we cherish.

5. Eric Holder’s and Obama’s decision to use a civilian court to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other top al-Qaeda terrorists has to be an attempt to put the Bush administration’s—in the eyes of Obama and Holder, illegal—“War on Terror” on trial. The plan probably appealed to Obama’s political team, knocked off-balance by recent losses in Virgina and New Jersey, as a way of returning to their winning 2008 strategy of perpetually running against Bush instead of the real opponent (in 2008, Clinton or McCain).

The trial has a huge potential downside. No enemy combatant in U.S. history has ever before been granted a civil trial. A recent CNN poll found that 64% believed the 9.11 terrorists belonged in a military court; only 34% agreed with the Holder-Obama decision. It’s easy to predict Americans won’t like the civilian trial as it unfolds, a feeling that could backfire against those who unnecessarily and wrongly ordered it.