NBC political director and MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” host Chuck Todd examined President Barack Obama’s low approval rating and foreign policy doctrine on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Todd said Obama’s foreign policy is “seen as less popular, it’s seen as less stable because it looks as if he’s not leading, events are leading him. And I think that that’s what the country is reacting personally to him. That this is like, where’s the leadership, what’s going on here?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out this man’s doctrine now for six years,” he continued. “He doesn’t have one. He ran with a wink and a nod that this was going to be a George H.W. Bush foreign policy, stability and diplomacy first. And yet he has been pulled in different directions. His instinct actually is very George W. Bush-like, which is democracy, freedom, no winners and losers.”
“So look at the way he had intervened early in the Arab Spring and then he realized ‘boy that was a mistake.’ It’s almost like he pushes and pulls between the idea of democracy first versus stability first. And he goes back and forth and messed around with democracy in Egypt, didn’t work, in Libya, didn’t work. He admits it now. And now he’s trying for stability first. And I think in this case, he’s struggling” Todd added.
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