No Obama boost for Kevin Rudd
On the site today, Dan Drezner and the Shadow Gov. team take President Obama to task for cancelling — for the second time — his trip to Indonesia and Australia. The leaders of those countries say they understand the delay. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who would know, said that he "himself would find it ...
On the site today, Dan Drezner and the Shadow Gov. team take President Obama to task for cancelling -- for the second time -- his trip to Indonesia and Australia.
The leaders of those countries say they understand the delay. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who would know, said that he "himself would find it very difficult to leave Indonesia in the middle of a natural disaster -- like, for example, a tsunami."
Publicly at least, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was similarly understanding. But the Sydney Morning Herald reports that he might have his own personal reasons for regretting the further delay:
On the site today, Dan Drezner and the Shadow Gov. team take President Obama to task for cancelling — for the second time — his trip to Indonesia and Australia.
The leaders of those countries say they understand the delay. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who would know, said that he "himself would find it very difficult to leave Indonesia in the middle of a natural disaster — like, for example, a tsunami."
Publicly at least, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was similarly understanding. But the Sydney Morning Herald reports that he might have his own personal reasons for regretting the further delay:
Although his popularity is waning in the US, Mr Obama remains popular in Australia and there were hopes within the government that some of that would rub off on the Mr Rudd before the federal election, which is expected to be held by October.
But whatever frustration Rudd and Yudhoyono are feeling over their missed chance to play host to Obama, I imagine it’s nothing compared with what the producers of "Little Obama" are going through right now.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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