The media has been saving up the good vibes: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090300333_2.html?hpid=topnews President Bush, making an unannounced visit to this isolated and well-fortified air base in Anbar province,.... Although Bush touted the substantial political and security progress made in Anbar, he did not leave the safety of the base Monday to see those changes firsthand. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1128-02.htm [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Electoral raid on Baghdad" read the caustic headline in the left-wing Paris daily Liberation which summed up European newspaper editorial reaction to President George W Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit to US troops in Iraq. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The brief visit, arranged in top secrecy, occurred too late for most papers to give it full coverage, and almost all ran the same wire agency photo of Mr Bush, clad in a gray army bomber jacket, carrying a large tray of roast turkey, potatoes and grapes through a crowd of smiling soldiers. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Those which did comment were mostly skeptical of Mr Bush's motives, with the US presidential election now less than 12 months away. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The turkey has landed," ran the front-page headline in the London daily Independent. [/FONT] http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2003/11/29/999853.htm "George Bush becomes the first US president to visit Iraq in order to provide the television pictures required by his re-election campaign," it said, noting that Hillary Rodham Clinton, "his undeclared Democratic opponent," was on her way to Baghdad from Afghanistan. http://www.progressiveu.org/021528-bush-visits-the-troops-in-iraq-is-it-yet-another-public-relations-stunt The last thing anyone expected to hear was that President Bush flew into Baghdad (well more correctly into the highly protected green zone). http://newsbusters.org/issues/foreign-policy/iraq?page=65 After being off the last two days, Harry Smith returned to CBS’s "Early Show" this morning and apparently he didn’t forget the bias. Today Smith interviewed Dan Bartlett, a counselor to President Bush. While Smith set up Senator Joe Biden on June 5 to go on the offensive against the war, he tried his best to keep Bartlett on the defensive while downplaying President Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq yesterday. Smith began the questioning: "Well, the Iraqis now have a constitution. Now they actually have a government as well. What they don't have in Baghdad is day-to-day security or even electricity. How does the president's visit change that?"
Your own source says nothing of any "not offend the Germans" remark that you "quoted" above. Where exactly did you get that from? The article says that Sarkozy of France was annoyed that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown got a lavish pre-conference visit from Obama and that he wanted one too. But the French haven't earned the status that the British have of being our solitary dependable ally who will actually fight with us. This wasn't about an American cemetery visit. It was about a state visit to France with dinner at a Chateau, the cemetery visit, great speeches and a flashy international press conference. Like the article stated, "During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France". Diplomatic speak. In fact, Obama is playing them off against each other. The British have special status with us and the cheese-eating surrender monkeys have to be reminded from time to time. Trying to turn this into a snub of a US cemetery visit is a very shallow attempt to make an issue out of nothing.
Maybe if someone told Obama what significance Normandy holds in American history he'd be more inclined to pay his respects. I doubt that his Muslim schooling and Harvard classes covered that. Hell, he could even bow there and get away with it.
I know what the headline said, but the sub-title "Barack Obama, concerned about offending Britain and Germany, rebuffed strenuous attempts by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to persuade the new American president to make a trip to Normandy this week." suggests that it was concern with Britain and Germany, not Germany. And the body off the text explains nothing about either of them being offended and goes on to relate how France was offended that Obama made no special trip and was maneuvering to create one. The headline was misleading for this reason and for the more obvious reason that it was a state visit to France that Obama was avoiding NOT a visit to an American cemetary.
Still, Obama needs to be a little less concerned about the "feelings" of these faux allies (not UK) and start acting like he has a spine and is looking out for the best interest of America and Americans. So what if France is offended? WTF do they do for us anyway?
They sold weapons behind our backs to Saddam's Iraq. That's what they have done for us lately but yet we don't want to offend them!:lol: I have to laugh at just how Ph*cked up the world seems to be these days!:insane::wave:
You didn't really read the article past the headline, did you? The reason behind it was he had two days to visit the leaders of three countries, and didn't have time to go to Omaha beach. It also said that most likely he would be back in June for something more formal. Nowhere does anybody from Obama's camp say that he did it to "avoid offending the Germans". It's kind of sad that the opinion-makers of my former party have to resort to making up faux issues with which to hammer the opposition. There was a time when that was what the liberals were known for. Intellectual debate is dead in America. Here, this is the only relevant, factual part of this article: "During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France". A White House spokesman in London declined to comment. Last month, White House officials briefed that a Normandy visit had been considered but it had not been logistically possible. Mr Obama will arrive in Strasbourg on Friday for the Nato summit. He will hold a meeting with Mr Sarkozy and a brief press appearance in Strasbourg and then fly to Baden-Baden to do exactly the same with Chancellor Merkel of Germany. He will then fly to Prague on Saturday.
