>By the way - as I rarely give Obama any credit (because, candidly, he rarely merits it as a leader), his comments today on the Colin Kaepernick situation were actually "presidential".
>
>I agree with that.
>
>However, speaking of being presidential, IMHO, his handling of the snub by China at the G20 summit was a bit less than presidential. The correct response would have been for him to wait until they got the stairs for him to de-plane. And if it took too long, Air Force One should have turned around and flown back to the states. This would have been the appropriate response to the snub from a nation whose culture is so big on "saving face".

That's a tough call, but I understand what you mean. There is no question this was a calculated diplomatic snub to stir up nationalism for their country.

There are 2 ways to look at it. One way is that the president could have basically said, "OK, have it your way, but you'll pay for it later".

There's a good line in the movie Wall Street..."Show-downs bore me...nobody wins...you can have such-and-such", with the implication that the other person might ultimately find he has bitten off more than he can chew.


It's difficult to give the president enough credit to think he'd do that. And that leads to theory #2 - this administration has permitted itself to be humiliated so many times that I think it actually courts humiliation and feels it deserves to be respected (by Iran, as an example). This president has paid out a treasure in what he perceives as "emotional reparations" to countries that are clearly not our allies, and it infuriates me.

This, incidentally, is part of why Trump has the appeal he has - the belief that he'd tell the other side to go pound sand. On my worst and angriest day, there's a tiny molecule inside me that wants to root for Trump, just on this issue alone - but I know better.