Barrel Strength

As printed in the Washington Post, so it’s not spin from the VRWC MkII:

… U.S. diplomacy has remained mostly in the hands of one man, Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, who is pushing for normalizing relations with the only country in the world led by a president indicted for war crimes.

[...]

“We’ve got to think about giving out cookies,” said Gration, who was appointed in March. “Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.

[...]

Ghazi Salahuddin, a close Bashir adviser, praised Gration for “trying to be even-handed.” During a stop in this Darfur capital, Gration was greeted like a rock star by hundreds of cheering Bashir supporters in a conference hall plastered with posters of Bashir with Obama, poorly joined together using a computer.

Oh. Dear. God.

From MSNBC today:

President Obama will travel to Copenhagen to make a pitch for Chicago’s Olympic bid, White House officials have confirmed to NBC News.

Obama will leave for Denmark Thursday night, hours after his wife Michelle departs for the vote. The president made the final decision Saturday night after returning from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.

From Washington Times today:

The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC [video teleconferece],” General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

Your correspondent earlier equated the Obama presidential run to mass hysteria in UK  after Diana’s death.  That analogy can now be extended to this shallow celebrity-president who is in love with his own image as others have noted.