In his last days in office President Obama appears to have plunged into a flurry of activity. Firstly his ire over Russian meddling in the American elections. I have no reason to doubt that the hacking occurred but that is not the point. When a President of the USA makes such a fuss over supposed (or otherwise) meddling in his elections, eyebrows tend to rise in disbelief. Oh really now? And since when has an American President been averse to meddling in other nations? elections? The history of the US in this respect is long and black and not confined to mere meddling in elections but to actually engineering coups whereby democracies were crushed while puppet stooge raw military dictatorships favourable to the US were imposed with dire consequences for these nations (Chile and Greece to name but two). So the fuss over Russian hacking can?t help sounding somewhat hollow and, unfortunately a bit like sour grapes for having lost the elections. Blame defeat on anyone and anything else other than perhaps the achievements or lack thereof of the previous eight years.

Then there is the question of the UN Resolution on Israeli settlements. Though finally refraining from an outright veto in Israel?s favour for the first time, definitely a step in the right direction for human rights, there is again a feeling of hollow emptiness about it. Just where has the Obama administration been on this over the past eight years? All of a sudden at the very tail end of his second term he takes a stand. A stand that feels sorely like far too little far too late.

Overall it is extremely disappointing that a President with so much promise in whom so much hope was placed should be ending his  term of office with what looks like petulant little displays of a sore loser.

Obama visited the UK in the run up to the Brexit referendum. He not only declared himself roundly on the side of Remain but threatened that should Brexit prevail the UK would be pushed to the end of the queue.

In the US Presidential campaign he pulled out all the stops to campaign in favour of Hillary Clinton with even Michelle Obama being rolled out to make impassioned speeches on her behalf.

Now quite regardless of the merits of Remain or Hillary Clinton as President, both these interventions were beyond normal practice. Firstly with regard to the UK referendum it constituted unprecedented meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign state and indeed staunch ally. In the case of the US election he was justifiably endorsing the candidate of his own party but he went to unprecedented lengths to do this going way beyond anything that has happened before in this respect.

In his farewell tour of Europe his first stop was Athens and second stop Berlin. In Athens he made beautiful speeches on Democracy and roundly declared that Greek debt should be reduced and that austerity cannot lead to growth. Both self evident statements. Nevertheless in Berlin he appears to have completely forgotten about them and made no mention of Greek debt or the dangers of austerity to The Frau.

He was so warm and cordial to Frau Merkel that it was said he was handing over the leadership of the Free World to her now that that ghastly white supremacist racist had been voted in as US President.

To be fair to the President he did not say so in so many words but nor did he say what is self evident in any words at all. That under the effective leadership of Europe Merkel has eroded the foundations of the EU, has undermined democracy in Europe and changed it into a German Europe ruled by fiat, has ruined the economies of EU members and has in fact brought the whole Union to the brink of fragmentation and perhaps even dissolution.

For all that, Obama warmly praised Frau Merkel and said that he would vote for her if he was German. (More uncalled for meddling in the internal affairs of other states).

Now, since his first two blatant and clumsy attempts to influence the outcome of a vote ended in failure, we should perhaps start worrying (or not) that he may well perfume a hat trick here too.

In any case, should Frau Merkel perchance lose the Chancellorship next year, she and we will know who to blame.