Was Obama's Royal Wedding Invitations Lost in the Mail? No, He Was Snubbed

Looks like the English are still upset at Mr. Hope-and-Change for how he has treated our closest allies over the past two years. The guest list was released for the upcoming royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and guess guess who wasn’t on it:

Oh, the humiliation. Once not so long ago one of the world's top celebrities in his own right, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle did not make the cut for invitations to the royal wedding in London next spring.

On April 29 in Westminster Abbey with all the grace and pageantry sure to capture international imaginations, commoner Kate Middleton will marry Prince William, son of Princess Diana. And don't forget the horsedrawn carriage perhaps.

But the current residents of the White House will not be there, according to the Daily Mail.

The official excuse provided to the British paper by royal sources is that the royal couple wants to share their special nuptial moment with ordinary citizens. Anyway, it is not an official state event, they said. And, you know, Westminster only seats 2,000.

Nice try.

So then how to explain the invites to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni?

And how to explain the invitations to England-loving President and Mrs. Reagan for the wedding of Diana and Prince Charles back in 1981? And the subsequent invitations to the American first family for the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson five years later?

The English snubbed Obama? Don’t they like his policy of “smart diplomacy”? Hasn’t he raised our standing in the world, brought our allies closer, and turned enemies in to allies by just being the awesome one that he is? What possible reason could they have to be upset at the Chosen One? It’s not like he’s ever been called “the most unpopular man in Britain”. Right?... Oh, yeah! What has Obama done to deserve such a dubious honor?:

On that grand occasion in Buckingham Palace, President Obama on behalf of the people of the United States presented the British sovereign with the gift of an iPod. She gave him a photograph framed in silver.

That came a few months after Britain's visiting Prime Minister Gordon Brown was denied the traditional Oval Office photo op with the American president. And Obama gave Brown a couple of toy helicopters of Marine One and classic American movie DVD's, reportedly in a format incompatible with British players. Thanks for stopping by.

He, also, returned a bust of Winston Churchill, which was a gift from the British to the White House years ago.

Let’s not, also, forget, when Obama sent Gitmo detainees being sent to the British island of Bermuda, without even consulting with the British government. Obama was in such a hurry to try and fulfill his promise to close Gitmo that he didn’t even have the common courtesy to ask the prime minister permission before sending terrorists to one of his territories. Why would they be upset about that?

This is just another example of the fact his “smart diplomacy” skills has resulted in lowering our standing in the world with our allies and enemies not raising it, like he campaigned to do, when he was running for the presidency.

No matter how they try to spin this, this is a huge snub on Obama and, by-extension, America. He’s going to have to mend some fences across the pond in England and the rest of Europe, if he wants to get anything done on the foreign policy front.

Is Obama Public Enemy #1 in Britain Right Now?

Ahhh! You have to love this style of "smart diplomacy" that this era of hope-and-change has brought us. In 18 short months Obama has gone from the British media darling to "the most unpopular man in Britain". That is impressive:

What a difference 18 months and an oil spill makes. In January 2009 Barack Obama was hugely popular on this side of the Atlantic, and could have walked on water in the eyes of the British media, the political elites, and the general public. In June 2010 however he probably qualifies as the most despised US president since Nixon among the British people. In fact you can’t open a London paper at this time without reading yet another fiery broadside against a leader who famously boasted of restoring “America’s standing” in the world.

When even Obama’s most ardent political supporters in Britain, including Boris Johnson, are on the offensive against the White House, you know the president’s halo has dramatically slipped. It’s hard to believe that any politician could become more disliked in the UK than Gordon Brown, but Barack Obama is achieving that in spades. And as Janet Daley noted of the British press, the love affair with Barack is well and truly over.

His recent handling and public persecution of the British-based. BP seems to have been the proverbial straw that even brought his most staunch supporters to criticize him:

The key catalyst for rising anti-Obama sentiment in the UK has been his disastrous handling of the BP issue, and his relentless desire to crush Britain’s biggest company. There is no doubting BP’s responsibility over the Gulf oil disaster, and it is right that the firm is being held to account for its failures. But the brutal, almost sadistic trashing of BP by the imperious Obama administration, which has helped wipe out about half its value, threatens its very future, as well as the pensions of 18 million British people and the jobs of 29,000 Americans. There is now the very real danger of the bankrupting of a great British enterprise, and the prospect even of a Chinese or Russian takeover.

Instead of adopting a constructive, statesmanlike approach, Barack Obama’s decision to launch a “boot on the throat” campaign, while adopting a thinly veiled Brit-bashing agenda, has generated significant bad blood in America’s closest ally. At the same time, the president has inexplicably rejected offers of help from the UK and an array of European countries, no doubt out of both pride and protectionism.

Of course, this hasn't been the first time that Obama's brand of "smart diplomacy" as went awry, when he has dealt with the UK. Obama has stumbled time and again, when he has dealt with Great Britain. He sent back the bust of Churchill, gave Gordon Brown a set of DVDs that won’t even work in British DVD players, and transferred Gitmo prisoners to Bermuda without telling the British government about it intentionally. He has damaged, possibly irreparably, the relationship between the two countries, at least while Obama is still in office:

As I wrote previously, we are witnessing one of the worst exercises in public diplomacy by a US government in recent memory, one that could cause significant long-term damage to the incredibly important economic and political partnership between Great Britain and the United States. And for those who say this is minor storm in a tea cup, I would point out that it is highly unusual for a British Prime Minister to have to stand up to an onslaught against British interests by an American president, as David Cameron has just done. In fact the prospect of a major confrontation between Downing Street and the White House grows stronger by the day.

Obama has lost sight of the fact that he needs Europe and Israel, and he has ostracized America’s best allies even worse than Bush had. According to the British people, he is rapidly becoming the least popular American president in recent memory:

The Anglo-American Special Relationship, the most successful partnership of modern times, will survive long after President Obama departs the White House. It is far bigger than any one president or prime minister. But there can be no doubt that it is being significantly damaged and weakened at this moment by the Obama administration’s sneering approach towards Great Britain, at a time when British and American soldiers are fighting and dying alongside each other in a major war in Afghanistan. President Obama needs to see the big picture and understand that his anti-British posturing is hugely counter-productive and highly offensive. He is already one of the least popular US presidents of modern times, not only in the eyes of the American people, but now the people of Britain as well.

If this is his idea of repairing America’s standing in the world and restoring the ties between America’s closest allies, it’s a joke. Everyone else is finally realizing what Obama’s critics have been saying since 2008. He has no idea how to be diplomatic, and his zero experience in foreign diplomacy is a liability, when he attempts to deal with other world leaders. He will have an even harder time getting people to help us in Iraq or Afghanistan. Plus, he will need help from them to solve the financial crisis and bring us out of this recession. He is only making it harder on himself and America as a whole in all our future interactions with Europe. He needs to wise-up and find that “reset” button that he used with Russia and use it with the UK, Israel, and the rest of Europe. He needs to completely retool his approach to handling our closest allies. If he doesn’t, we may not have these allies anymore by the time his term ends in 2012.

Administration Official: US Kept Britain In the Dark About the Gitmo/Bermuda Deal Intentionally

The Gitmo/Bermuda story is getting more and more interesting:

A senior US official has told the BBC Washington decided not to tell London ahead of time about a deal to resettle four Guantanamo detainees in Bermuda.

Why would Obama intentionally keep this from England and risk a rift in between the two countries?

Washington was attempting to shield the UK from Chinese anger.

Beijing has demanded the return to China of all 17 Uighurs held by US forces but Washington says they could face persecution in China.

This sounds like spin control to me. If it is true, it shows how little Obama knows about how foreign diplomacy works. You don't keep thing like this from your closest ally when it directly affects their national security. Since Bermuda is under British control and they handle foreign affairs for the island, they should have been the first to be called not left in the dark. They should not be finding out about this for the first time through the press. It's just another example of how the One's actions shows how little he cares about and/or respects our allies.

Now a senior US official has told the BBC it was a deliberate decision not to consult London on the resettlement, after other countries came under pressure from China not to accept the Uighurs.

In a highly unusual move, a senior US official said Washington opted to keep details of the deal from London until the last minute to enable Britain to deny all knowledge of the deal and thus avoid China's anger, says the BBC's Washington correspondent Kim Ghattas.

The official said they expected London to be upset but added he felt the deal was made on solid ground, in direct talks with the Bermuda government, who accepted the men as part of guest worker programme.

"Upset" seems to a bit understated. According to one report, the British were downright "pissed".

That excuse is pathetic. Even if that was the real reason, China probably won't fully believe that Britain had no idea that this deal was going down. They may believe that the British are "playing dumb" and really knew about the deal even if they did not.

More "Smart" Diplomacy: Brits "Pissed" Over Obama's Transer of Gitmo Detainees to Bermuda

Obama does it again. At this pace, England will be our bitter enemies by the end of his term. In his haste to get the prisoners out of Gitmo by early next year, he made an arrangement with one governing body of the island without consulting with the other government in charge:

ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: The U.S. may be happy to see four more detainees leave the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Those Uighurs -- Chinese Muslims -- were sent to Bermuda today, but close ally Great Britain is seething because they say they were not adequately consulted about the move.

"They're pissed," admitted a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The UK provides for Bermuda's defense and foreign affairs, but the State Department today said it dealt directly with the government of Bermuda, who then informed the British Governor General on the island.

How can they move these dangerous individuals into a country without notifying the local military contingent. That would be like moving a convicted child molester into a neighborhood without notifying the local police or sheriff's office.

What in the world was the Obama Administration thinking? We wouldn't like it if France made a deal with Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño to send some of their serial killers to live in the American territory without contacting Washington. Obama, Gibbs, Clinton, and basically everyone else in the administration would be appalled at their audacity and arrogance of the French because we were not informed of the move.

German Adviser: Levers of Obama's Government Not Running Smoothly, Confused By Criticism

Obama's making friends all over Europe:

After mending fences with the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday, President Obama might want to keep his diplomatic tools handy for his stopover here, to repair his increasingly strained relationship with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A rift has quietly opened up between Germany and the United States, marked by official statements of harmony and private grumbling. It is not an outright crisis in relations, but there are underlying tensions and disagreements on matters ranging from the global economic crisis to the future of inmates held at Guantánamo Bay. On a more basic level, there is a sense that the Obama administration is ignoring the needs and counsel of longtime allies. Divided Germany was once at the center not only of the cold war, but of American foreign policy as well, which is no longer the case. Yet the United States can ill afford to alienate Europe's largest economy and its most important intermediary in the strained relationship with Russia. "They're not angry, they're not anti-Obama or anti-American," said John C. Kornblum, a former United States ambassador to Germany and now a business adviser in Berlin. "But they're confused by the wave of criticism which has been sent at them by the administration and people close to the administration.

"It's not that they don't like him," he said. "They just feel like things aren't working, like the levers of government are not being engaged to make issues run smoothly."

It's hard to run a government smoothly when you haven't filled all of your positions in your administration, and those that he does appoint are mostly gaffe prone and incompetent.

Obamas Decline to Dine With Sarkozys, Further Alienates US From Europe

Obama's "smart diplomacy" continues to alienate us from our old allies while he tries to make new ones in the Middle East:

The Obamas turn up in Paris this evening, but have declined a dinner invitation from the couple next door: the Sarkozys.

President Obama’s reluctance to spend more than minimum time with the French leader on his visit for the D-Day anniversary has come as an embarrassment to the Elysée Palace.

America’s First Family will not be dining with President Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, even though they are staying at the residence of the US Ambassador, yards from the Elysée apartments where the Sarkozys spend their weekends.

First, Obama snubs Brown here, here, here, here, and the Queen of England here. The British press have been much more critical of Obama since those snubs.

Now, he wants to do the same with Sorkozy and France.