Get Your Diplomatin’ On

We were told that Barack Obama would fix our crumbling alliances, restore international faith in America, fluff everybody’s pillows at night, and regale us with the magical songs of yesteryear, when America and Europe were as one.

He works in strange ways.

So far, he’s given the mostly blind Prime Minister of Britain region-coded DVDs to not watch at his leisure.  He’s offered the Queen an iPod with all of his best speeches.  Secretary of State Clinton wowed the Russians with the government’s kickass inability to translate English to Russian.  Now he’s deported Guantanamo terrorists to the UK territory of Bermuda, without letting the UK know.

Senior aides to President Barack Obama accompanied four Uighur prisoners as they were flown from Guantanamo Bay to the British colony of Bermuda, without the UK being informed, it was revealed yesterday.

In an escalating diplomatic row over the transfer of the former terrorist suspects, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the transfer with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in what was said to be an uneasy conversation. Privately Whitehall officials accused America of treating Britain, with whom it is supposed to have a "special relationship", with barely disguised contempt.

One senior official said: "The Americans were fully aware of the foreign-policy understanding we have with Bermuda and they deliberately chose to ignore it. This is not the kind of behaviour one expects from an ally."

On the other hand, he’s been widely praised for telling the "Muslim world" (another great collectivist shortcut) that America is, really, deep down, a Muslim nation and that America shouldn’t be considered "above" any other country (presumably including the oppressive apocalyptic theocracies that wish death to the Jews and the Great Satan).  Oh, yeah, he also threw a bone to the rest of the rational, civilized world by reminding us that holocaust denial is bad.  So don’t let anybody tell you that he’s without moderation.