On stiffing one's friends

When the prime minister of Japan came to the U.S. recently, his handlers lobbied fiercely for that all-important face-to-face with the American president. As David Pilling reports in London's Financial Times:

Yukio Hatoyama had to settle for just 10 minutes, and even that during a banquet when the US president was presumably more interested in the appetisers and wine. These things matter in Japan. One senior politician called the put-down – as it was inevitably viewed in Tokyo – “humiliating”. He even noted that the Japanese prime minister was shunted to the edge of a group photo, the diplomatic equivalent of banishment to Siberia.

It would be wrong to read too much into these titbits of protocol (though it is always fun trying). But behind the snub lies something real. The US-Japan alliance, the cornerstone of security in east Asia since 1945, has not looked so rocky in years.

 I made fun of Mr. Obama's Fawltyesque bow to the emperor of Japan, early in his administration, but gosh, did he have to go so far in the other direction? Though Mr. Obama apparently still retains his glow with foreign populations, he doesn't seem to get along all that well with foreign leaders, and especially not with those who historically have been well-disposed to the United States. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford