Never has the essential fatuity of The One’s foreign-policy vision been expressed so succinctly. This really is the core of their strategy to get people back on America’s team. Obama’s “coolness.”

“What’s happened is anti-Americanism isn’t cool anymore,” Mr. Axelrod said, speaking to an audience of a few hundred at a conference in Washington sponsored by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

“This president has not only engaged the leaders of the world, he’s engaged the people of the world,” Mr. Axelrod said, arguing that Mr. Obama’s approach to foreign policy has restored “a sense of humility” that “was missing” in the past.

It won’t get us combat troops from Europe for Afghanistan, and it won’t stop Iran’s nuclear processing, and it won’t change Zawahiri’s jihadi boilerplate even a little bit, but other than that it’s a whole new world. Interesting admission by Axe hidden in this formulation, incidentally — that the anti-Americanism of the Bush years was, to some greater or lesser extent, a pose, based not just on policy disagreement but on being thought fashionable or bien pensant. If Bush-hatred was that superficial, how superficial is Obama-worship?

Semi-related, here’s Spanish-language video of The One appearing to scold his new pal, presumably for not finding him sufficiently cool as to prevent that cheap stunt with the book on Saturday.