Recently,  President Barack Hussein Obama let his diplomatic mask slip off during an embarrasing open mic incident, involving French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

US President Barack Obama accidentally let it be known that he thinks Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu stinks on ice.

The gripe session between Sarkozy and Obama was picked up by a live mic at the Group of 20 summit in southern France.  Reporters heard it via headsets that were to be used for simultaneous translation of an upcoming news conference.

Obama’s opinion was heard through a French translation. Via the interpreter, Obama was heard asking Sarkozy to help persuade the Palestinians to stop their efforts to gain U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state.

Originally, the French-speaking journalists, including one from The Associated Press, did not report the comments because Sarkozy’s office had asked them not to turn on the headsets until the press conference began. Therefore, the conversation was classified as private under French media traditions.

Howver, A French website, Arret sur images, reported the the gripe session Tuesday:

SARKOZY:

Netanyahu, I can’t stand him. He’s a liar.

OBAMA:

You are sick of him, but I have to work with him every day.

Since becoming president in 2007, Sarkozy has tried to strengthen French ties with Israel while also seeking to use France’s leverage with Arab allies to encourage peace talks.

Why does Obama feel the way he does about the leader of Israel?  And, seemingly, the country he represents?

Some insight into Obama’s opinion may be provided by this  excerpt from a piece of journalistic servitude titled “Obama: Man of the World”, published in the New York Times on March 5, 2007, and written by Nicholas D. Kristof:

In foreign policy as well, Mr. Obama would bring to the White House an important experience that most other candidates lack: he has actually lived abroad. He spent four years as a child in Indonesia and attended schools in the Indonesian language, which he still speaks.

“I was a little Jakarta street kid,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office (excerpts are on my blog, http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground). He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

Moreover, Mr. Obama’s own grandfather in Kenya was a Muslim. Mr. Obama never met his grandfather and says he isn’t sure if his grandfather’s two wives were simultaneous or consecutive, or even if he was Sunni or Shiite. (O.K., maybe Mr. Obama should just give up on Alabama.)

We all remember that one of the first things that he did as president, was to deliver a conciliatory speech to the Muslim World at the University of Cairo.  While delivering his remarks there, Obama said:

…I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they’ve excelled in our sports arenas, they’ve won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson — kept in his personal library. (Applause.)

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. (Applause.)

Therefore, I don’t believe I’m stretching credulity when I say that President Obama has empathy for the Muslim World…and antipathy for Israel.  Especially after Netanyahu schooled him in front of the television cameras five months ago when the Israeli Prime Minister responded to the calls by the Muslim World to divide Israel and move the borders back to where they stood before 1967:

Remember that, before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide.  It was half the width of the Washington Beltway. And these were not the boundaries of peace; they were the boundaries of repeated wars, because the attack on Israel was so attractive.

It’s not going to happen. Everybody knows it’s not going to happen.  And I think it’s time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly it’s not going to happen.

The clear, unwavering, forthright leadership style of Bibi Netanyahu, explains the Obama/Sarkozy open mic gripe session.  It also explains the following:

According to Israel Today:

A poll conducted by the group Greenber Quinlan Rosner found that 52.3 percent of Americans rate Netanyahu positively, compared to 51.5 percent for Obama. Other polls have Obama’s approval ratings even lower, while Netanyahu has been consistently winning praise.

The American people are craving strong leadership.  Hopefully, on November 6, 2012, we will do something about it.