What Is The President Trying To Accomplish?

I really don't understand where the President is coming from. His missteps are becoming legendary in diplomatic circles. He bows to the wrong people. He declined to meet with the Dali Lama, he declined to join the King of Norway for lunch while in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He snubbed Gordon Brown.

Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, he has returned a bust of Winston Churchill to the British. This particular bust is from the British government's art collection and was lent to this country by Tony Blair as a sign of solidarity after 9/11. It sat in a place of honor in the Oval Office. Due to be returned after the end of Bush's administration, the British let it be known they'd like the Obama administration to keep it for the same reason. As a sign of solidarity. After all, they are our strongest ally in two wars, just as we were in the days of Churchill.

Bad manners? Yes and no. One, Obama looks to the European Commission as a stronger ally than individual countries. Our alliance with Great Britain is a relic, a thing of the past. Strange, since both France and Germany are not huge fans. It is Britain who has men fighting along side ours.

The second reason, and more troublesome, is a grudge. It seems Mr. Obama has a grudge against Britain for it's colonialist past. During this period his paternal grandfather was labeled a subversive in the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, detained and treated accordingly. That is somewhat akin to bearing a grudge against Great Britain for the Revolutionary War!

This from a man who has yet to send a cent to his family members who today live in an impoverished village in Kenya. It seems contrived.

I look at the support we've gotten from European nations as a whole versus what we get consistently from Great Britain and wonder if we're going down the wrong foreign policy path one more time. We picked the wrong side in the internal business of Honduras, the Cubans are unhappy with us again, Iran is seeing how ineffectual we are with quelling North Korea's nuclear ambitions thereby ignoring pleas for negotiations.

Over and above those implications, there is world image. He is no longer viewed as the super star he was. I find myself wondering if he is arrogant or ignorant of the ways of the world. Either way, someone needs to clue him in. Or does he choose not to listen?