Rex Murphy: Justin Trudeau’s burst toward Peak Summit

The worst American President since Jimmy Carter lavishes love on Gerald Butts' hand puppet, the dumbest Canadian Prime Minister since Confederation:

...Vanity Fair, Vogue, the Daily Mail, 60 Minutes, the Panda Heritage Moment at Toronto’s zoo — he (Justin Trudeau) generates more gloss than Revlon and threatens single-handedly to rescue the lifestyle pages of a thousand newspapers. It is truly an unprecedented burst of glittering gatherings and adulatory attention.

Well, almost. Obama began his term on even higher terrain. He was in Cairo addressing the Muslim world even as the dew was fresh on his presidency. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (which has become the world’s most distinguished Boy Scouts’ badge) bare weeks into his term, and won it before his first year was up. Which considering the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the drift in Iraq, the imperial spread of Iran in the Middle East, the mêlée and massacre in Syria, the disintegration of Libya now appears not only premature, but severely ironic.

The honours and attention that flooded the Obama presidency while it was still, so to speak, in its Bethlehem stable might offer some cautions for Trudeau. High schools usually – at least they used to – save prom nights for after graduation...