In the Meantime, Obama and His Family Have Left for Brazil

I can't believe he actually left for the Latin America tour in the middle of all this - Japan's nuclear crisis, effective declaration of war on Gaddafi's Libya, US ally Saudi Arabia killing people in Bahrain.

Has there been any significant peep out of the US, or from the Prez himself on any of these?

NOOOOOO. He issued a statement or two on Japan, silent on Libya, even deader silence on Saudi Arabia.

Can't condemn the king who gave him such a lavish gift, can he?

Brazil, Chile, El Salvador would have perfectly understood if the White House had said it wanted to cancel the trip, as one grave international crisis was happening after another grave international crisis, and though none of them involved the United States or Latin America directly (maybe with the exception of the UN no-fly zone declaration over Libya) they involved the close US allies and the US's rapid response to these crisis would be critical; therefore the President couldn't leave the country at this juncture.

I suspect they had expected that Obama would cancel the trip.

But NOOOOOO! It's a family affair! Can't disappoint the wife and two kids, can he?

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