Obama in Copenhagen: Where's the inside story?

BULLETIN -- Summit recognizes Obama's three-page "Copenhagen Accord" -- Reuters: "U.N. climate talks avoided a total collapse on Saturday by skirting bitter opposition from several nations to a deal championed by the U.S. President Barack Obama and five emerging economies including China. ‘Finally we sealed a deal,' U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said." The formal action was to "note" the deal. Don't miss the White House tick-tock below.

So much for two years of work and a supposedly broad international consensus that was to make the Copenhagen conference little more than a formality.

Clearly, yesterday was about squabbling over how much money we'll borrow from the Chinese so that we can give it right back to Beijing and other Third World countries in exchange for their promise to . . . well, that was never clear.

And twice yesterday, Obama was kept waiting in public by China's premier.

This is scary stuff.

Obviously, the rest of the world has taken measure of Barack Obama -- and decided he's a pushover.

On the merits, not unfairly.

And apparently, Obama crashed a meeting between some of the larger "developing countries" upset that he wasn't invited, according to Glenn Thrush of Politico:

President Barack Obama burst into a meeting of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders to try and reach a climate agreement in late Friday negotiations in Copenhagen.

Chinese protocol officials objected to Obama's presence in the meeting, according to a senior administration official, who said that the president didn't want the leaders negotiating in secret.

The dramatic meeting came after a day the White House spent in a whirlwind of meetings trying to save the Copenhagen climate talks from complete meltdown.

Incredibly, the president was able to hammer out a deal with 3 other nations and have the rest of the conference "note" the draft.

And he's selling this as significant?

The press is going along with him for the most part with Peter Baker of the New York Times claiming Obama's agreement with "world powers" (China, India, and Brazil) staved off disaster at Copenhagen. The rest of the press is obediently parroting the White House Line that the agreement that was all but dismissed by the conference was "meaningful."

What an embarrassing performance by a man getting no respect by other nations.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky