Washington Post's Milbank calls Obama's Israel trip 'triumph of low expectations

Following President Obama's four-day Middle East tour last week, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank (a fairly liberal guy) writes...

Obama didn’t accomplish much of substance: no obvious progress toward talks with the Palestinians, no new ground in deterring Iran’s nuclear program or Syria’s chemical weapons. But the Israelis, who had been suspicious of Obama’s commitment to the Jewish state, were delighted by the attention. “He had us at Shalom,” was the headline on an analysis in the Jerusalem Post.

The trip was so successful that it could provide Obama with a road map (to use the moribund term from peace talks) for success in his second term in areas beyond the region. Call it the triumph of low expectations: When your goals are less ambitious, they are easier to meet. ...

Gone were Obama’s demands. Suppressed were his lofty ambitions. And absent were expectations, in his audience and among the American public, that he would achieve a peace breakthrough. It was a tacit admission of failure, yet everybody seemed happier with the scaled-back aspirations.

Full column here.

@eScarry