Miss Manners 1, Obama Administration 0

Who didn't see this coming?

It was an attempt by President Obama to reach out to Iran with a classically American invitation: celebrate July 4 with hot dogs and hale fellowship at United States embassies worldwide. Now, hot-dog diplomacy is the latest casualty of the bloody clashes in Tehran.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had authorized diplomatic posts earlier this month to invite Iranians to their Independence Day parties, sent out a cable rescinding the invitations.

“Unfortunately, circumstances have changed, and participation by Iranian diplomats would not be appropriate in light of the unjust actions that the president and I have condemned,” she said. Embassies that had already invited Iranian diplomats were instructed to disinvite them.

Well, good for the administration, though it comes much, much later than it should have -- and actually rescinding the invitations should never have had to occur as the invitations should never have been sent.

But notice that the disinvitation to the Iranian diplomats sounds eerily similar to the hypothetical example of a Presidential disinvitation in Miss Manners' Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior that we shared in a previous post, which read:

MR. AND MRS. JONATHAN R. AWFUL, II
129 PRIMROSE PATH
BROOKDALE, CONNECTICUT

THE PRESIDENT AND MRS. EAGLE REGRET THAT HIS
MAJESTY HANDSOME V WILL BE UNABLE TO VISIT
THE UNITED STATES AT THIS TIME BECAUSE OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY CIRCUMSTANCES NOW EXISTING IN
MAGICLAND. THEREFORE THE DINNER IN HIS HONOR
AT THE WHITE HOUSE ON WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7,
2005, HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

THE SOCIAL SECRETARY THE WHITE HOUSE

Nobody messes with Miss Manners.

Nobody Meddles With Obama

In our last post, we provided the evidence that Biden and Hillary may have designs on "meddling" with Obama.

But. To be fair to Obama, and his rather well-deserved reputation as a timid player in foreign policy, he apparently displays much less timidity when it comes to handling division within his own administration.

On Wednesday, word broke that Hillary and Biden were not happy with Obama's stance on Iran.

And on that very same day, it was Hillary's elbow that broke in a so-called "accident".

Accident? Coincidence? Don't be naive.

Well.

In any event, the elbow may be broken, but the finger still works:

Someone May Be Meddling

Last week, the New York Times dropped this tibit about the Obama administration's response to the protests in Iran:

Even while supporting the president’s approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said.

To that point, criticism of President Obama was mostly confined to Republicans and conservative leaning blogs. And while that story raised more than a few eyebrows, it was quickly dismissed by the White House.

However, since that time President Obama has begun to move away from his early hesitation in speaking out against the thuggish regime and for the protesters as reportedly advocated by both Biden and Clinton.

But even with this new approach, new evidence has emerged that Biden and Clinton may have themselves moved further toward the view that Obama is simply not up to the task:

Gird your loins, Obama.

UPDATE: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a joint statement with Iran's Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei which states: “We don't want to meddle in what should be internal affiars of the Great Satan, but there may not be that much difference between any of them, and we are appalled and outraged that in a land of supposed free speech, the media so readily grants administration leakers anonymity.”

WELL, WELL, WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE: Dan Riehl has this observation concerning Hillary:

Oh my. Why would Hillary need an attack dog par excellence at the State Department? I speculated about Hillary's long-term thinking if Obama really gets caught up in a scandal, or just starts to fade for any reason. I'd keep my eye out for stories featuring "unnamed senior officials at the State Department".

Pre-mature, perhaps - but Blumenthal will say anything about anyone to help a Clinton. This is an interesting move. If there's ever any Obama blood in the water, Sidney will be one of the most dangerous sharks. Just sayin'.

Obama's Excuciatingly Incorrect Behavior

It perhaps is not shocking to discover, though it is no less depressing. Even in the midst of a bloody crackdown in Iran by the thuggish regime against its own citizens protesting the June 12th elections, the Obama administration has no plans on rescinding an invitation to Iranian diplomats for July 4th barbeques at US embassies. Allah at Hot Air has the story from AFP:

The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.

President Barack Obama’s administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“There’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

“We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran,” Kelly said. “We tried many years of isolation, and we’re pursuing a different path now.”

Some people are troubled by this, others are outraged. But ultimately there is but one course one should take in addressing this matter, gentle reader.

And that is, of course to consult Miss Manners' Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior.

In our copy of Judith Martin's indispensible book, we find on pages 600-601 examples of the proper eitquette the Obama administration should be following in this type of situation, rather than the unfortunate and shameful actions we see above.

Although, on Google Books, it appears that the examples are on pages 701-702 -- yet unfortunately, Google Books does not contain a preview image for page 701.

Therefore, we will re-create page 701 (without the fancy script font on the invitations) and then copy the image for page 702 from Google Books.

President Obama would be wise to ask himself, WWMMD -- What Would Miss Manners Do -- and avoid what is obviously his very excruciatingly incorrect behavior.

Bo Knows Iran

Twitter threatens to overtake my life.

I tweeted this yesterday:

@JTlol The reason O and the kids had to pick up doggie treats on the outing 2day ... Bo was left at WH to monitor the situation in Iran.

And sure enough, as Obama and his girls headed out for ice cream...

Woof!

Mmmmm, Tastes Just Like Freedom Voting Present

Well, for better or worse I finally dipped my toe into twitter.

Obama and his girls went out for ice cream today and, well, some people thought that was a little off key because of the crisis in Iran.

Instinctively, I went out and found an old pic of Obama eating ice cream and submitted it to twitter:

But!!! That was an old pic, and as fast as twitter moves, the pic was quickly overcome by the actual images of today's excursion. So I submitted today's pic (via Patterico) with the same caption...

And now, Patterico has a caption contest with this photo at his site...I wish everyone the best of luck.

Great Some Minds Think Alike

Like Obama, Ahmadinejad can succinctly address those who would oppose him.

Is the Situation in Iran a Serious Crisis?

While Obama is flipping off the protesters and demonstrators in Iran, here's a question: Where's Rahm Emanuel?

Remember that Emanuel? It's all about taking advantage of a serious crisis, right?

Empowering Iranian protesters and demonstrators crying out to be freed of the oppression of the current regime, through clear moral and rhetorical support, in an effort that could help delegitimize, destabilize and perhaps overthrow the nuclear weapon-seeking and terror-sponsoring mullahs and Ahmadinejad?

Well.

"You never sometimes want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before but which would take too much risk in expending political capital such that doing anything other than sitting on your hands becomes undesirable."

And while the President sits on his hands...

The House passed it's resolution supporting the people of Iran. Two people voted present, 25 abstained, and everyone else voted for it, except one representative.

Wanna take a guess who that was?

And then Ron Paul, the only person to vote against the House resolution, explained that he did so because he "admired President Obama’s cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly."

Of course, Paul is wrong to think he's aligned with Obama in cautious passivity, right?

We know that because the WH decided to...

...send in Gibbs!

President Barack Obama's chief spokesman said Friday that a House-passed resolution condemning the Iranian election and the unrest that followed "is very consistent" with the message the White House has been sending this week.

But wait.

"He believes those who wish to have their voices heard should be able to do that without fear of violence," Gibbs said. "That is an important universal principle that should be upheld and I think he supports that."

Gibbs thinks Obama supports that? He thinks???

Of course, Gibbs would know Obama supports that if Obama had actually come out and said that he supports that.

As it is, Gibbs is in the same position the rest of us are...

We can only speculate.

Obama Salutes the Iranians

Reacting to Obama's reaction to the Iranian sham elections and the subsequent mass protests and demonstrations, Ace writes:

Unbelievable. The resisters in Iran cry out for support -- even mere support of the moral kind -- and Obama gives them the finger. He's Ahmadinejad's boy and he's not changing that for nobody.

Ace only thought that he was speaking metaphorically about that one finger salute: