Fake Spat Over Sham Relationship

Nicolas Sarkozy heads to Washington on Monday for talks with President Obama on international security and France's plans for world monetary reform. The one-day visit comes as France embarks on its year at the presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) rich and emerging economies, as well as the G8 powers, during which Sarkozy wants to reform currency and commodity markets and world governance. The two are also expected to discuss security challenges such as the war in Afghanistan, security in Pakistan and threats from ‘militants’ that particularly concern France in north Africa.
Meanwhile, a farcical spat has erupted in the UK Press (silly and serious) about Obama’s throwaway remark that France was America’s greatest ally. What happened to the fatuous ‘special relationship’ with Britain? What they should have picked up by now is that Obama talks in vacuities and abstractions and probably hardly reads the speeches which he delivers with the oratorial skills for which he is famous. I truly believe that Obama couldn’t tell you what topic he spoke on earlier in the same day, he is on such an auto-pilot with the verbiage.

The speech in Arizona is a good exemplar of Obama’s outlook. Completely inward-looking vis-a-vis American public opinion and media. For example, I wonder how many of the millions of bereaved, displaced and diseased who are scattered across the wastes of Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan are impressed by : ‘‘at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."
Crank up the drone technology, why don’t you, Barak?