After Barack Obama’s embrace of the troops in Iraq I was actually warming up to the guy, but now that his international bow and flagellate tour is interrupted by a hostage crisis on the high seas, his silence is shameful and embarrassing. There were more pirate attacks this time last year off the coast of Somalia, and yet it is now, for the first time in, what, centuries, that an American vessel has been hijacked by pirates in, what, centuries? The pirates want to see how weak we are, and I fear Barack Obama, with all the nuance he can muster, just may demonstrate exactly how far we can capitulate.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I missed George W Bush. Someone who wasn’t afraid to call an evildoer evil, and when hit in the mouth took the fight to terrorists. I have some problems with how the Iraq war has been handled, but during the Bush administration nobody wanted to hijack our boats and push us around to get paid.

What irks me most is it seems that Barack’s biggest problem is how the pirate’s are crimping his style.