By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--November 23, 2009
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… their excuse for the delay was the shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas on the US Army base on November 5. But the fact of the matter is, the memoral service was on the November 10 and only took a day trip for Obama whereupon he returned immediately to Washington. After that, he had the National Security Council meeting on policy in Afghanistan on November 11th. However, he could have departed Washington D.C. right after that and could have still landed in Japan as everyone agreed and planned on, for the 12th.In another slight to Japan, a Japanese ruling party spokesman noted that it was obvious to them that Obama was more interested in China on this trip anyway as four days were scheduled for the Communists while only two were scheduled for them. The magazine notes that Obama was left waiting in a car for five minutes at the entrance to the Prime Minister’s Official Residence and this may have been a message of rebuke sent to Obama by Japanese officials for the president’s abrupt change of schedule. Shukan Bunshun magazine also notes that while the Japanese had “a total of 14 officials, including six cabinet ministers, the Foreign Minister Okada, the Defense Minister Kitazawa,” the president’s retinue only consisted of members of “Team Obama” and no other American officials of high standing. This was taken as a message that Obama did not consider this meeting very important. Consequently, after the meeting with Japanese officials, PM Hatoyama immediately left Japan for the APEC Summit essentially leaving Obama alone on Japanese soil even though Obama had several other high profile visits to wrap up in Japan. Japanese journalist Michael Yu noted that this was a message that Hatoyama did not feel much respect for Obama since, as host, he essentially abandoned his guest, President Obama, and flew off to Singapore. The Japanese magazine characterizes this visit as the “worst” one ever.
“To tell you the truth, it had to have been the worst US-Japan Summit Meeting in history,” a source of ours at the Foreign Ministry revealed to us.This is just one more example of “Team Obama” issuing one slight after another to our allies while slavishly devoting himself to our enemies. The British have felt it, the Germans, the French, and now the Japanese. It all adds up to a White House that places little interest in good diplomatic relations with our allies.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.