ROARING LOUDLY, CARRYING A SMALL TWIG

I can't help but be amused when I read what the courts are getting up to these days as the Justice Department seeks to mold and shape America's foreign policy without any assistance whatsoever from the State Department. Obama's ability to annoy friends and inflame hatred and contempt is bad enough but the fetid courts of New York seem bound and determined to outrage any possible friendly relations we could have with the worlds largest democracy.

It's bad enough that they engage in mal-diplomacy but do they have to do it with such stunning stupidity? Here is yet another case in point from the Indian Times.

The court has ordered Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress of a country of almost one billion people, to furnish it with a copy of her passport so that the Court can use it to determine if she was actually in the United States at the time in question when one party in a case against her insists that she was legally served papers while receiving treatment in a medical facility.

Isn't that peculiar? As a citizen of India she would need to have a visa to legally enter the United States. State Department would have a record of her visa. She would have to pass through Immigration to enter the United States so ICE would have a record of her arrival and departure. If she was receiving treatment at a medical facility, the medical facility would have a record of her as a patient. But none of them seem to be able to offer anything that would inform the court about whether or not the President of the Indian National Congress was in the U.S. at the time in question.

This seems odd though. In our context, she would seem to be right up there as visible as our Speaker of the House or Senate majority leader. Somebody would know where they were unless they deliberately drop off the grid while doing the bidding of Satan the Koch brothers.

For some reason though, all the court wants is a copy of her passport to show that there are no entry and exit stamps for the time in question. The funny bit is from the comments to the article in the Indian Times: Which passport does the court want? Her Italian or her Indian passport? Why not say her house was broken into and her papers stolen along with her passport? Who is this court to demand anything?

Why is it that all these presidents seem to have multiple passports from different countries and the State Department and Immigration are clueless about them? More importantly, why is New York so determined to screw around with India? It is fine and good to say that all are equal before and answerable to the law but that's clearly a lie and made more manifest every day as the Obama administration simply ignores, breaks and flouts the law.

When we were a powerful and unified country leading an alliance that shaped the world and held some of it in check, we could get away with casual arrogance and disdain for our fellows but since we elected Obama we dropped the mantle and the power that shielded us from our arrogance. We don't command respect and have not for some time. By the same token, we have gone out of our way to antagonize other countries over trifles since we got Obamad.

It is sad to admit that the country elected a trifling little man as president without also observing that he has squandered all of the good will and statesmanship of three generations. He knows nothing of speaking softly and has nothing but twigs and reeds with which to threaten the planet. Al Gore is scarier.