Saturday, September 03, 2016

Nationalism

It's what you find when you "Pivot to Asia." Washington Post with great detail on the logistical disputes upon the landing of Air Force 1 in China today --

On the tarmac, as Obama’s staff scrambled to get lower-level stairs in place for him to disembark, White House press photographers traveling with him tried to get in their usual position to mark his arrival in a foreign country, only to find a member of the Chinese welcoming delegation screaming at them. He told the White House press corps they needed to leave. A White House official tried to intervene, saying this is our president and our plane and the media isn’t moving. The man yelled in response, “This is our country!” The man then entered into a testy exchange with Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, and her deputy, Ben Rhodes, while trying to block them from moving toward the front of the plane.

The extra nice detail here being that it's Ben Rhodes who thinks that the USA needed to dump old thinking that might have had it be pro-active about Syria, because there was always going to be something better to do in Asia!

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