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People who travel to other countries really need to be realistic, and I personally do believe US obligation ends when a citizen leaves here, other than those in military or other gov't capacity.

I really don't think we see things that differently in theory (although I think the US obligation to protect its citizens doesn't completely end when a citizen leaves the country - but it's greatly diminished).

Unfortunately, expectations often become reality. If people who travel to other countries expect the U.S. embassy to bail them out of their troubles while abroad, they will become angry when the embassy doesn't do it or doesn't do it quickly enough. When the TV shows pictures of the French, Swiss and Swedes evacuating their citizens from Lebanon, the U.S. public expects the same for U.S. citizens and wonders why these second-rate powers can get their citizens out while we cannot, regardless of whether those countries are in a position to evacuate their citizens for historic, cultural or simple geographic reasons. And if the reasons why aren't adequately explained, people become increasingly annoyed as their expectations aren't met. Managing expectations is important in any PR war.

Politically, what the administration needs is someone like General Honore to tell the press that Rome wasn't built in a day, their expectations are unrealistic in the real world, we're doing the best we can, and they're (as always) stuck on stupid, BEFORE the inevitable stories about the slow response start appearing in the press.

I don't see how the media has been any faster to the whining about slow government response than some on this board. When posters tout the score of the French getting people out vs. the smaller number of Americans evacuated while overlooking the fact that the French hand out passports like bubble-gum and don't care who boards what, there're bound to already be of the entitlement mentality. When their only concern is "me, me, me" and how much they can criticize the U.S. and Israel, they so outclass the media in their shallowness and misinformation that they become not credible.