Tell us what you REALLY think, Edward

There was an interview on The World at One today with Edward Lucas of The Economist which caught my attention. 

Discussing President Putin's carefully calculated two-fingered salute to President Obama in the New York Times, Mr Lucas gave the following appraisal of President Obama - and it's somewhat different to that given by, say, Mark Mardell or James Naughtie:

I think that Barack Obama's proved to be the worst American president since Jimmy Carter. Perhaps even worse than Jimmy Carter. It's a quite astonishingly bad mixture of a very chilly attitude to allies, appeasing enemies, a very calculating, dithering approach followed by impulsive decisions that aren't thought through.

Ouch! If I were Barack Obama, my ears wouldn't just be burning after that; I'd have tinnitus.