Winston Churchill wrote about Kaiser Wilhelm II, but he could also have been writing about Obama the “I”:

Imagine on every side the thunderous tributes of crowd-loyalty and the skilled unceasing flattery of courtierly adulation.

“You are,” they say, “the All-Highest. . . . It is for you to choose the Chancellor and the Ministers of State; it is for you to choose the chiefs of the Army and Navy. . . . Each word you utter is received by all present with rapture, or at least respect. You have but to form a desire, and it is granted. Limitless wealth and splendor attend your every step. . . . Should you weary of the grosser forms of flattery, far more subtle methods will be applied. . . . Intimate friends are at hand to report day by day how deeply impressed this or that great expert was with your marvelous grasp of his subject. The General Staff seem awed by your comprehension of the higher strategy. The diplomats are wonder-struck by your manly candor or patient restraint, as the case may be. . . . And this goes on day after day and year after year. . . .

Foreign policy:

Just strut about and pose and rattle the undrawn sword. All he wished was to feel like Napoleon, and to be like him without having to fight his battles. Surely less than this would not pass muster. If you are the summit of a volcano, the least you can do is to smoke.

And looking towards the future:

What a contrast twelve years would show! A broken man. . . .

An awful fate! Was it the wage of guilt or incapacity? There is, of course, a point where incapacity and levity are so flagrant that they become tantamount to guilt. Nevertheless history should incline toward the more charitable view. . . .

But the defense which can be made will not be flattering to his self-esteem. It is, in short, rather on the lines of the defense which the eminent French counsel presented on behalf of Marshal Bazaine when he was brought to trial for treason in the surrender of Metz: “This is no traitor. Look at him: he is only a blunderer.”