Obama’s Hypocritical Weakness

[February 27, 2026] We are just finding out that in a display of elitism and foreign policy cowardice, former President Barack Obama lambasted Sony Pictures for daring to produce a satirical film that mocked North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un; this according to revelations from ex-Sony CEO Michael Lynton’s new book.

If I learned one thing important about leadership in the U.S. Army, it is that hypocritical weakness is a fatal flaw, and exceptionally difficult to overcome. This behind-the-scenes blame game exposes Obama’s true colors: a leader more interested in appeasing brutal regimes than defending American freedoms and creativity. Ex-President Obama should do himself a favor, and just fade away. Instead, we get more reminders of how fickle he was, and is.

The 2014 film The Interview, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, portrayed bumbling journalists tasked with assassinating the tyrannical Kim; a plot that, while fictional and comedic, struck a nerve with Pyongyang’s despotic ruler. In retaliation, North Korean hackers launched a devastating cyberattack on Sony, leaking private emails, employee data, and unreleased films, while threatening violence against theaters.

Yet, instead of unequivocally standing against this act of state-sponsored terrorism, Obama reportedly turned his ire on the victims.

Lynton, in an excerpt from his book From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You, recounts a conversation with Obama: “I spoke to President Obama about the whole incident.

Unsurprisingly, he asked the right question: ‘What were you thinking when you made killing the leader of a hostile foreign nation a plot point? Of course that was a mistake.’” This private scolding reeks of victim-blaming, as if Sony’s exercise of free speech was the real crime, not the North Korean regime’s blatant aggression.

Publicly, of course, Obama sang a different tune. At a December 19, 2014, news conference, he postured as a defender of liberty, declaring, “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States.” He warned against self-censorship and emphasized that America shouldn’t bow to intimidation.

This was classic Obama; rhetoric for the cameras, weakness behind closed doors.

His administration’s internal reaction, as confirmed by former Undersecretary of State Richard Stengel, was dismissive: The collective reaction by everyone at the State Department was a yawn. Responses ranged from, “It’s not our problem, to Sony was stupid to use Kim’s actual name, to What do you expect when you insult a head of state and threaten another country?”

This hypocrisy is emblematic of Obama’s entire foreign policy playbook: apologize first, blame America second, and let dictators like Kim Jong-un off the hook. While conservatives like Ronald Reagan confronted evil head-on, calling out the Soviet Union as an “evil empire;” Obama preferred moral equivocation.

He treated North Korea’s cyber warfare as a predictable “hornet’s sting,” echoing Lynton’s own pathetic self-flagellation: “If you kick the hornet’s nest and get stung, you can’t really blame the hornets.” Is this the leadership we expect from a U.S. president? Blaming Hollywood for provoking a rogue state, rather than rallying the world against a nuclear-armed madman?

Readers and commenters on the Wall Street Journal excerpt rightly eviscerated Lynton’s “orgy of self-blame” as “pathetic,” with one top comment from Donald Feldman stating, “It was a great movie and the right decision to release it. Lynton’s orgy of self-blame is pathetic.

No one could have anticipated that North Korea could have hacked the information that they did. Lynton’s conclusion seems to be that appeasement is always the right decision when confronted by a grotesque bully.”

Another, from Aaron Sawchuk, called it a “profile in courage” in sarcasm: “The lesson you learned was to self-censor against a brutally repressive regime? Truly a profile in courage. Pathetic.”

But the real villain here isn’t Lynton, whose liberal guilt led him to greenlight the film and then regret it due to his “middle-school self” insecurities. It’s Obama, whose administration fostered an environment where American companies were scolded for offending dictators’ “sensibilities.”

This is the same Obama who bowed to foreign leaders, downplayed threats from radical Islam, and pursued a disastrous nuclear deal with Iran that emboldened our enemies. His handling of the Sony hack foreshadowed his broader failures: from the Benghazi cover-up to the rise of ISIS, Obama consistently prioritized political correctness over American strength.

What’s the point of American exceptionalism if we can’t even mock a communist thug in a comedy flick? Hollywood, under liberal control, already self-censors enough to appease China and other adversaries. Obama’s private criticism only encouraged more of this capitulation.

Conservatives know better: freedom of speech isn’t negotiable, especially when it exposes tyrants like Kim Jong-un for the laughingstocks they are.

Lynton and his co-author Joshua L. Steiner—another Clinton-era insider with his own baggage from the Whitewater scandal—should have heeded the adage “Never complain, never explain.” Instead, they’ve given us a window into the Obama era’s spinelessness.

As America faces renewed threats from North Korea and beyond, let’s remember: true leadership means standing up to bullies, not blaming the brave souls who poke fun at them.

Obama’s legacy? A trail of apologies and missed opportunities, leaving America weaker on the world stage.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here)