Perhaps the President's mistake is thinking he could "control" the world in the first place

Reality is such an uncooperative bitch isn't she? Authoritarians are constantly shouting orders that the rest of us ignore. They're a bunch of bloody AL Haigs:

At a fundraiser on Tuesday, President Barack Obama admitted, “There’s a sense possibly that the world is spinning so fast and nobody is able to control it.”

http://reason.com/blog