Neighbors and Friends

 

Compare and contrast behaviors:

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, our neighbor to the south, whose population keeps crawling through our borders illegally, comes to Washington, bashes our country and our immigration policies (with President Obama leaping in to assist), and will do the same thing today in front of Congress. Result? State Dinner at the White House with all the stops pulled out.

Now think back to just over a month ago. Back in March, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, our longtime ally and staunch friend, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, visited President Obama. No red carpet or state dinner for him! In fact, Mr. Obama, displeased with what he perceived as a lack of progress in one of their meetings, rudely left Mr. Netanyahu to cool his heels. Our classless President left to go have dinner, pointedly not inviting Bibi, saying, “Let me know if there is anything new.”

In Obama’s world up is down and bad is good. Countries who encourage their citizens to illegally enter the United States (in fact, whose governments publish handbooks on how to do so), who chastize us on state laws that are none of their business and accuse us of racism–why they’re welcomed with open arms and feted with state dinners.

However, nations who solidly support and embody strong democratic ideals, who have traditionally had a particularly close relationship with America, who know exactly what it means to fight for their very survival–well, they get to sit around waiting for our President to finish dinner. This is what passes for White House diplomacy these days.

I’m telling you, 2012 can’t come soon enough.

Stoutcat