Posted on 10/29/2009 10:32:32 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Bush dinner tastes sour for Obama
- PMO decision to entertain former President causes hurt in Washington
K.P. NAYAR
Washington, Oct. 24: Preparations for Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington on November 24 have begun on a negative signal to the Obama administration with a decision by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to host former President George W. Bush for dinner at Singh’s residence at the end of this month.
Bush is visiting New Delhi on October 30 and 31 at the invitation of an Indian newspaper and will speak at a conference organised in New Delhi on October 31 on “America Re-engaging with the World: Challenges, Opportunities and Risks”.
Arguably stung by the PMO’s insensitivity in ostentatiously receiving the bete noir of the Democratic establishment here just over three weeks before Singh’s arrival at the White House, the Obama administration announced yesterday that US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will make her first trip to Islamabad.
Clinton, a long-time friend of India, has tried her best to prevent a return to hyphenated Indo-Pakistan relations under the Obama administration and had refused to include Pakistan in the 229,528km that she has flown in her nine months in office.
Despite the strategic importance of Pakistan in the Afghan conundrum that is confronting President Barack Obama, Clinton has so far left it to her minions to deal with the broad leadership in Islamabad.
But that will change with her first trip, which was significantly announced at a briefing by Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose prickly equations with New Delhi are well publicised here.
On the record, of course, no one in the Obama administration will say anything negative about the Bush trip to India because civility in political discourse is valued in the US. Nor will they suggest a Bush-India link in Clinton’s sudden decision to travel to Islamabad “soon”.
A source close to Clinton, however, said she recalled being kept hanging in her Senate office in 2001 while Sonia Gandhi repeatedly changed plans to meet her. The Indian embassy here had advised the Congress president that the Bush administration would not look favourably on a meeting with the former First Lady-turned-Democratic Senator from New York.
Instructions have gone out from the state department to the US embassy in New Delhi to extend all the courtesies that are due to a former American head of state and the ambassador in New Delhi, Timothy Roemer, will be correct, but not effusive in dealing with Bush.
But in private conversations, officials of the Obama administration, especially Democratic political appointees, make no secret of their sense of hurt over New Delhi’s decision.
This sense of hurt is shared by liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill, where enthusiasm about the Prime Minister’s visit was palpable until it became widely known here that the man whom many of them consider to be a war criminal is being needlessly feted in New Delhi at this time.
“We are rolling out the red carpet for your Prime Minister,” pointed out one Obama administration official. “Singh’s is the first state visit to be organised by the Obama administration. And what do you do? Invite the man who triggered the end of my country’s superpower status and brought shame to America worldwide.”
Said a Congressional aide: “In New Delhi people have been complaining for nine months, quite mistakenly, that Obama has downgraded the relationship with India. You have complaints about Obama’s nuclear policy, his climate policy and his trade policy.
“So the President decides to organise a grand show of bonhomie with your Prime Minister in the White House. Instead of making the most of this opportunity by both sides, your response is to slap us in the face by inviting the one man who is responsible for most of the problems on Obama’s shoulders.”
The wide-ranging sense of betrayal in hosting Bush little over three weeks before Singh travels to Washington is partly the result of a feeling here — perhaps mistaken — that it was the PMO which organised the invitation to Bush to visit New Delhi.
Some Americans insist that the US embassy in New Delhi had sent cables earlier, reporting government feelers to think tanks and non-government institutions to invite Bush to give a lecture in India as an excuse for the UPA government to thank him for what he did for Indo-US relations.
Sources who have seen these cables said such feelers began after Bush made his first trip outside North America in April to attend the Boao Forum in China, which is similar to the conference the former President will address in New Delhi on October 31.
In March, Bush made a feeble attempt to enter the lucrative lecture circuit by making a test trip to Calgary, Canada, where 1,500 people paid $400 per person to hear the former President. But protesters outnumbered listeners, media were kept out of the hall and the trip was deemed a disaster.
The only other known overseas trip made by Bush since relinquishing office was to South Korea in August to speak at an economic forum organised by the Federation of Korean Industries. But in this case, Korean industries had been working with him to overcome Republican opposition in the US Congress to the ratification of a Korea-US free trade agreement.
Looks like New Delhi is quietly calling a spade a spade. It’s not surprising that emergent democracies are either hesitant or are downright shunning zero when they see how he has treated our old allies and is embracing Marxist dictators.
His administration is so arrogant and ignorant at the same time, they probably WILL serve beef, either to be deliberately rude or because they just don’t know and don’t think they should have to know.
Hi, Allegra! Thanks for your comment about Iraq.
Does anyone really think Bush tried to keep Clinton from being greeted in India? He spent 8 years putting up with Clinton, Carter, and Gore sniping at him from the sidelines, and he patiently watched as these three and other democrat apparatchiks tooled around the wold, sowing discord wherever they could. Remember John Kerry in Western Europe? Remember Obama in the Middle East?
It is patently ridiculous to think that the Bush administration ignored all of these yahoos yet worked mightily to keep Hillary from visiting India.
Either Hillary is making up tales again, or someone in the administration is leaking faux excuses in order to justify their own whining.
I would like it if Singh gave zero the finger and just didn’t show up - cancels at the last minute due to being “under the weather; another time perhaps.”
If his skin gets any thinner, nobody’s even going to believe he’s even half black.
Not only sick, tacky and infantile, but it’s also threatening and thuggish. It perfectly captures the essence of zero, mrs. zero, his administration and his followers.
He has been getting a bit of the bum’s rush here and there. But it’s not enough to satisfy me.
He is having him over for dinner, it’s not like he is giving a national speech in TV for all of India. Grow up Obama and the same to your press sycophants.
Whole bunch of us share that sentiment indeed. Seems the crowd is getting larger as more people open their eyes to reality.
New Delhi would be wise to steer clear of zero altogether as much as possible. One thing zero hasn’t considered as he advances the destruction of our economy and the dollar. He couldn’t care less about jobs for Americans. As our productivity diminishes and our buying power dissipates, trade treaties with the U.S. become less valuable. That decreases zero’s wiggle room - his hammer - when dealing with highly productive countries such as India. China, too. He’s backing himself into a corner (and us with him) in which it becomes easier and easier for other countries to give us the finger as they pass by.
India has put a crimp in O’bummer’s plans to implement crap and tax plan after they told the UN that they had no plans of signing the new One world UN treaty in Copenhagen.
waaaahh, waaaah, waaah, (Obummer sticks his thumb back in his mouth and wee-wees all over himself)
I hope President Bush’s next “dinner invitation” is from “Pootie Poot” what a slap in the face that would be to Ozero!
Could obozo be any more petty??
Pray for America and Our Troops
My understanding is that this sort of maneuver is the Diplomat's version of a "BitchSlap"
Petty Obama and the Armbreakers, sing ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’
Call it Bush derangement syndrome if you want to.
I call it evil. An evil spirit moving Across the world.
The dems whole response to this reminds me of my daughter’s class. They get “hurt” when other kids get invited and they dont. That is perfectly understandable (if you’re in the third grade).
I had thought that Bush derangement syndrome would have faded by now but it seems to be terminal.
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