Nine days before speaking in Copenhagen, the president, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, intoned: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.” What was the speechwriter thinking when he or she assembled that sentence? The “should” was empty moralizing; the “can” was nonsense redundantly refuted by history. Does our Cicero even glance at his speeches before reading them in public?

Becoming solemn in Copenhagen, Obama said: “No one expects the Games to solve all our collective problems.” That’s right, no one does. So why say that? Then, shifting into the foggy sentimentalism of standard Olympics blather, he said “peaceful competition between nations represents what’s best about our humanity” and “it brings us together” and “it helps us to understand one another.”

Actually, sometimes the Olympic Games are a net subtraction from international comity. But Obama quickly returned to speaking about . . . himself…