Bret Stephens: The President of Contempt

Mr. Stephens writes the Wall Street Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.

Nixon was tricky. Ford was clumsy. Carter was dour. Reagan was sunny. Bush 41 was prudent. Clinton felt your pain. Bush 43 was stubborn. And Barack Obama is . . .

Early in America's acquaintance with the man who would become the 44th president, the word that typically sprang from media lips to describe him was "cool."

Cool as a matter of fashion sense—"Who does he think he is, George Clooney?" burbled the blogger Wonkette in April 2008. Cool as a matter of political temperament—"Maybe after eight years of George W. Bush stubbornness, on the heels of eight years of Clinton emotiveness, we need to send out for ice," approved USA Today's Ruben Navarrette that October. Cool as a matter of upbringing—Indonesia, apparently, is "where Barack learned to be cool," according to a family friend quoted in a biography of his mother.

The Obama cool made for a reassuring contrast with his campaign's warm-and-fuzzy appeals to hope, change and being the ones we've been waiting for. But as the American writer Minna Antrim observed long ago, "between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt." When it comes to Mr. Obama, boy does it ever...