Obama to Poland: I'm a Mother Duffer

I found this essay by Nile Gardiner to be worth a read.

Obama's (at best) ambivalence toward our European allies is a national embarrassment. Yes, DVD gift pack to Gordon Brown, I am looking at you. Yes, unwanted bust of Churchill, I am looking at you too. Yes White House gift shop presents for Gordon Brown's kids, I am also giving you an unPresidential "shout-out".

At worst, his passive-aggressive disdain for our traditional allies places Americans and American interests at extreme risk. Yes, scrapped european missile shield, I am looking at you.

And, to be truthful, I think part of my anger stems from the firm belief, if not outright conviction, that had Polish President Lech Kaczynski been a left-wing, anti-American, despot instead of a pro-American, free-market, anti-communist leader, the Mother Duffer (32 rounds in 14 months? really? OK..Tiger) would have moved Heaven and Earth to be there or to have acknowledged the event in some meaningful way.

Could you really see him skipping out on, say, Chavez' state funeral? Of letting it pass without some solemn intonation about the importance of the Chavista revolution? Really? I can't. No matter how many volcanoes erupt along the ring of fire, I have no doubt that Pres. Tiger Obama would have found some way to show his solidarity with that regime.

Which is what makes this point Gardiner raises resonate so clearly for me:

One would have thought that President Obama might have used the time he would have spent in Poland paying his respects to the Polish fallen. For example he could have visited the recently erected Victims of Communism memorial in Washington, or at the very least have signed the condolence book at the Polish Embassy. But what did he choose to do instead? Play yet another round of golf...

It is hard to think of anything more insulting to the Polish people on the day they mourned the loss not only of their president but much of their political and military leadership, for the president of the United States to be enjoying a round of golf after canceling plans to attend the funeral. It is yet another disgraceful example of crass insensitivity to a close American ally, which has become the hallmark of the Obama administration’s amateurish foreign policy.

Exactly right. Would have taken an hour out of his day and would have been seen as a welcome gesture by a country who has long counted on the United States to stand with it in opposition to the forces of totalitarianism to the East. The newly resurgent forces of totalitarianism that with whom our dear leader's regime recently signed a ridiculous nuclear treaty.

And don't think this is just me spouting off on a rant here. The Poles themselves have noticed too.

Mr Obama's Sunday golf game prompted anger in Poland, where the Warsaw Business Post carried a headline reading: "Obama goes golfing instead of attending Kaczynskis' funeral".

Hey...what's a backhanded slap to a country assisting our efforts in Afghanistan anyway, right?

I guess, on some level, I should be glad that Obama/Biden blew off the funeral. Lord knows, Slow Joe + open mic = irresistible urge to start a eulogy with a "How many Poles does it take to land an airplane"? joke. God love him.

So, I guess we at least were spared that inevitable, additional embarrassment.

Which, as far as this administration goes, is probably their most significant international achievement.

posted by Jack M. at 03:34 PM

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