Obama's splendid week is subject to downward revision

Some positives are undeniable. In Europe, his public relations tour has been magnificent -- no question about it -- as well as magnificently covered; and at home, headlines have trumpeted a compliant Congress in the way of his first term's progressive agenda. The verdict: a boffo few days, all the way around, brightening an already polished presidential image of unstoppable action.

Yet the G-20 summit was a mixed brew -- true, better than most summits but still tainted with indigestible hesitations that could haunt. The participants agreed to vast new international lending, for instance, though no economic stimulus; they also agreed to global regulation of finance, to be enacted, however, idiosyncratically. As for protectionism? Beyond the pledges, we'll see. But domestic demands to protect the homefolks first have always inclined to the overwhelming.

At the NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, again, the international faces beam and the photo ops glisten and it would seem at a cursory view that we are one with the world. Yet here there's even less accord -- far, far less -- than there was in London.

In the eyes of Europeans we're no longer the unspeakable renegades we were under the Bush regime, but we do remain a kind of freakish outlier with an overeager reliance on military designs on what is, almost certainly, a foreign immutability.

As the Washington Post understated the matter yesterday: "European leaders have proved reluctant to follow Obama in his first major foreign policy initiative....

"[They] said Obama is likely to come away from the summit Saturday with a broad endorsement of his idea that stabilizing Afghanistan is a strategic goal for NATO and support for his decision to devote more civilian as well as military resources to eliminating al-Qaeda havens there and in Pakistan. But they also said that summit pleasantries are unlikely to mask Europe's refusal to commit to major new troop deployments."

In the world's most inhospitable trouble spot we effectively are on our own again, just like in Iraq -- and just as Iraq is again heating up. (Now there's a surprise.) The hardening contours are both unmistakable and terrifying: Obama's "increasing American troops in Afghanistan to some 68,000 by the end of the year, from 38,000 today," muses the Times, essentially "Americanize[s] an operation that in recent years had been divided equally between American troops and allied forces."

What, another 4,000 dead and a trillion squandered to achieve some level of tranquility which can then re-blow just as we ready ourselves to leave? Misery loves company, but we don't even have that. Saieth the Europeans, sagely, the misery is all yours.

Turning to the homefront, apropos of Obama's domestic agenda, many a headline and their accompanying ledes -- in other words, the full journalistic distance traversed by most readers -- were misleading.

"Congress Approves Budget"! bellowed the Post in bold print, followed immediately by, "Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama's ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday ... set[ting] the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities."

Intoned the Times: "Budget Approved, With No GOP Votes"! -- making sure to capture the above-the-fold sensationalism of what's amounting to an increasingly impotent partisan dispute. "The House and Senate approved budgets ... on Thursday with no Republican support, a sign of deep partisan tensions likely to color Congressional efforts to enact major policy initiatives sought by President Obama." Nevertheless both chambers hustled what is "generally in keeping with Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda."

The real problematic partisanship, however, was internecine, and reflected in the final product. The Politico was less delicate: "Budgets fall short of Obama's mandate."

Even more depressingly direct was Jonathan Karl in ABC News' "The Note," announcing "Little-Noticed Budget Changes Signal Problems Ahead for the Obama Agenda" ...

"The good news for the White House: The budget passed.

"The bad news: Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for it [one must make some concessions to the meaningless, I suppose].

"The worse news: ... On the major pillars of the Obama agenda -- healthcare, energy and climate change, education, and regulatory reform -- the signs from Capitol Hill are less than promising." In his conclusion Karl somewhat reversed himself on that regulatory part -- "a sweeping change to the way the financial system is regulated" is "the White House's best shot for a major legislative accomplishment this year" -- but those other "major pillars" are collapsing.

"Healthcare -- ... Congress can agree on how not to pay for it, but not on a viable way to pay for it.

"Energy/Climate Change -- ... odds of final passage this year are low. One Democratic Senator who strongly favors the [cap and trade] bill told me bluntly yesterday, 'It won't happen.'

"Education -- There's talk of reforming No Child Left Behind, but no real movement."

Bundle it all together -- from the restrained response to a global meltdown to a ceaseless hot spot of unilateral quicksand to impregnable mossbackism at home -- and Obama may someday recall the glorious week that wasn't.