Obama's Leadership

There has been some discussion in the blogosphere lately about growing anti-Muslim sentiment and some believe that it is due to Obama's lack of leadership on this issue.  Following 9/11, Bush was proactive in exclaiming the virtues of Islam and pronouncing the terrorists as apostates of the so-called religion of peace.  Obama hasn't really continued that effort and his administration's efforts to return to dealing with terrorism as criminal activity and not as an act of war are leaving some Americans feeling more vulnerable to attack.  As such, it's presumed that this vulnerability leaves Americans more fearful of "the other" than they otherwise might be. 

Now we have Obama refusing to visit a Sikh temple because he will have to don a head covering to do so and the optics that creates would harm his image, or so he thinks.  I'm sure the Obama-is-a-closet-Muslim crowd would certainly pounce on that image.  But so what?  Why be beholden to them?  Especially when he's not even going to a mosque -- it's a Sikh temple for crying out loud!  Bush held hands with a Saudi royal (as is the apparent cultural norm in those parts) and Obama's worried about putting a handkerchief on his head?  Please. 

On a sidenote, Tunku Varadarajan claims in his article that "the old, bold Obama" is gone.  I would like evidence that such an Obama ever existed. 

Second sidenote:  for all the talk about how Obama would increase our stature in the world through his superior diplomacy and what-not, we got a President (and staff) who

• gives an iPod filled with his own speeches to the Queen of England
• gives DVDs that don't work to the British Prime Minister
• displays the Philippines flag upside down during an official visit
• and most certainly other transgressions that I can't remember or be bothered to find because it's too depressing

And yet, here's cowboy Bush sucking it up and holding hands with a Saudi prince because that's what grown men do in Saudi Arabia.  (Yes, I am overlooking the fact that the Saudi regime is about as unsavory as it gets.)  Who's more the citizen of the world -- Obama or Bush?