Blue Star Chronicles

Barack and Michelle Obama have refused dinner with their hosts in France, the French President and his wife, Nicholas and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Its an embarrassment for the French, but probable payback from Obama. Read about it below and see photos and a video.

Obama Snubs Sarkozy

Barack and Michelle Obama are in France this evening, but won’t be spending any quality time with their hosts, the President of France and his wife. It seems that French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy invited the Obamas out to dinner and the Obamas refused the invitation.

This isn’t the first time Obama has snubbed Sarkozy, or the first time he’s snubbed other European leaders. In fact, it seems to be becoming a pattern. In fact, he seems to work hard at keeping European leaders at arms length …. à bout de bras. Actually, this seems to happen with anyone he doesn’t view as important to his own political advancement.

In Sarkozy’s case, there was tension between the two leaders at the G20 conference. And there was the comments from Sarkozy about Obama’s inexperience. That didn’t go over well with Obama who sent a message to Sarkozy that he’d read up and do his homework next time.

Obama has mastered the Chicago politics of ‘payback’ and has now put Sarkozy in the embarrassing position of having extended an invitation to another world leader and been turned down. So is it à bon chat, bon rat? The liberal French press are having a heyday with it, of course. There has been dissent in France every since Sarkozy suggested that the people should work for a living rather than depend on government payouts. Rioting ensued and the French leftist have since looked for whatever excuses they could to smear their President.

Obama is in France for D-Day ceremonies. The Elysée Palace seems a bit exasperated, saying that Obama’s schedule is changing minute by minute and they can’t pin down a plan of events. Some are reporting that the snub is a result of the French not inviting Queen Elizabeth to the D-Day ceremonies, something that Obama publicly rebuked them for and took credit for fixing. But the snubs started long before any of that and judging from his gift to the Queen, he’s not exactly been frothing over her either.

Of course, there are those who are saying that its simply a matter of Michelle not wanting to be photographed next to Carla again.

All of these changes in relations with European leaders can be attributed to one of two things. Either Obama really doesn’t care that much for the leaders of Europe, or he really doesn’t know how he’s supposed to behave in these situations. I have thought that surely he has a czar of protocol, seeing as he has a ‘czar’ of everything else. Such a protocol chief would go a long way in helping Obama avoid embarrassing gaffes and appearing like ‘the Beverly Hillbillies Go to Europe’. A protocol office would buy gifts and prepare the President in the proper protocol for each country he visits or leader who visits here. But then, maybe he doesn’t. Of course, if he just doesn’t like Europe or its leaders, then learning proper protocol wouldn’t make any difference.

His insults to world leaders seem to be pretty much universal … with the exception of the muslim world.

Obama Snubs Sarkozy - Photos