Move Over Gordon Brown, Here Comes Lula

Is Obama snubbing another foreign leader? Fri, 03/13/2009 - 10:40am

After the Gordon Brown debacle, you would think the White House would put a little more thought into planning for visits by visiting heads of state. But Brazil is already grumbling about the treatment of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will sit down with Obama this weekend and is the first Latin American leader to visit the White House under the new administration.

"Silva aides said the trip was pushed forward from Tuesday because of the St. Patrick's Day holiday - making Latin America once again look like an afterthought. Then, the White House announcement misspelled his name as "Luis Ignacio" and put "Lula" - a nickname that decades ago became a legal part of the Brazilian leader's name - in quotes."

I'm sure he'll feel better when he gets his DVDs.

I know Obama's got bigger things to worry about, but there is a whole office of protocol that's supposed to take care of these things. If they can put together a Stevie Wonder concert, they should be able to arrange White House visits from the world's most important leaders with a little more class than this.


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http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/13/is_obama_snubbing_another_foreign_leader

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My Thoughts

You would think getting to know the man's name would be number one on the list of things to know when meeting an important leader of another country.

What else can I say? His administration just can't seem to get their act together. They went from a well-oiled campaign machine to a sputtering lemon especially on the foreign policy side. He looks like the not-quite ready for primetime player that I thought he was all along. Like Palin, he has a tremendous upside, but he wasn't ready to be president. Maybe he will grow into the job. For all of our sakes, I pray that he will be.