Actually, all of those adjectives come from the New York Times — and that’s the most sympathetic take on Barack Obama’s big pivot/comeback speech on foreign policy. The West Point address accomplished a rarity in media and politics by creating a consensus between the editorial boards of the NYT, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. That consensus, however, is that Obama flopped in his straw-man approach to criticism and his utter incoherence on American policy. When a President can’t convince one of these three on policy, it may be time to find a new approach — or perhaps a new team (via AoSHQ).

The open from the NYT hints at what’s coming:

President Obama and his aides heralded his commencement speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday as a big moment, when he would lay out his foreign policy vision for the remainder of his term and refute his critics. The address did not match the hype, was largely uninspiring, lacked strategic sweep and is unlikely to quiet his detractors, on the right or the left.

Yes, that’s the most sympathetic read. The NYT editorial turns harsh toward the end:

[H]e provided little new insight into how he plans to lead in the next two years, and many still doubt that he fully appreciates the leverage the United States has even in a changing world. Falling back on hackneyed phrases like America is the “indispensable nation” told us little. The president said he wanted to spend $5 billion to train and support armies in places like Libya, Mali, Yemen and Somalia to combat terrorists. The aim is to avoid having to use American troops, and, in theory, it makes sense. But the United States has a checkered history in such endeavors, and Mr. Obama made only a cursory mention of other factors crucial to success, including responsible governance and education for all. It was disturbing to hear him gloss over the return of military rule in Egypt. Mr. Obama’s talk of the need for more transparency about drone strikes and intelligence gathering, including abusive surveillance practices, was ludicrous. His administration had to be dragged into even minimal disclosures on both topics. Just Tuesday, the administration said it wanted to make further deletions from a legal memo on drone strikes that a court ordered it to make public.

The Washington Post’s editors could hardly contain their scorn for the army of straw men Obama attempted to battle:

One might think that a foreign policy speech that draws such ire from the NYT and the Washington Post might at least get a little enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend love from the Wall Street Journal. Instead, the WSJ editorial board noticed a few gaping holes in Obama’s big foreign policy speech:

No mention of the Reset. “The reset button has worked,” Mr. Obama avowed in a 2009 meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s figurehead president. That was the same year Mr. Obama announced in Moscow that, “The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chessboard are over.” No mention of the Pivot or “rebalance” to Asia. This was billed by Hillary Clinton in 2011 as “among the most important diplomatic efforts of our time” and meant as proof that America’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan wasn’t simply a retreat from the world. But as assistant secretary of defense Katrina McFarland admitted in March, following the latest round of Pentagon cuts, “Right now, the pivot is being looked at again, because candidly it can’t happen.” No mention of Mr. Obama’s Red Line in Syria against the use of chemical weapons. No mention, either, of the ostensible success of using diplomacy to disarm Bashar Assad. The President was fond of boasting of this achievement until recently, when it emerged that Assad continues to use chlorine bombs to kill his enemies. Somehow that also didn’t make it into the speech. No mention of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which occupied the bulk of John Kerry‘s first year as Secretary of State and which has now collapsed as Mahmoud Abbas patches up his differences with the terrorists of Hamas.

In comparison, the reception from West Point cadets was positively warm. CNN’s Jim Clancy noted the “icy” reception (via Noah Rothman at Mediaite):

“It was a philosophical speech,” Clancy said. “It was not a commander-in-chief speaking to his troops. And you heard the reception. I mean, it was pretty icy.”

It’s not getting much better outside of West Point, either.