President Barack Obama’s willingness to criticize his own country, and unwillingness to defend it against vitriolic attacks from abroad, is starting to be more than a little worrisome. Americans have a right to have their president put our best face forward to the world. Instead, he has already traveled all over the world sending a message – an utterly false message – that we are to blame for many of the world’s ills. For that message to emanate from an American president is, frankly, outrageous.

The latest examples have come on his visits to Central and South America. First, Obama said that the United States is responsible for a huge portion – as much as 90 percent – of the guns being used by Mexican drug smugglers. As a matter of demonstrable fact, that is absolutely, positively wrong. Second, Obama warmly greeted Venezuela’s radical leftist dictator, Hugo Chavez, and then indicated he would open a more extensive dialogue with Chavez. Obama’s act looked terribly obsequious in light of Chavez’ “gift” to Obama of a four-decade-old book (“Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano) that virulently assails the United States.