Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggie till you find a stone. The Philippines’ President not only threw the parameters of the art into the river but dropped a boulder.
Now, usually such political gaffes are unintended to be heard like in cases where the microphone is still on or you are being secretly taped and pay the price for indiscretion. Not often do you have a bitterness through bluntness but President Duterte certainly lived up to his reputation and beyond when he slurred US President Obama with multiple yelps of profanity just before they were supposed to have their first one to one meeting.
That Duterte made the comment at a press conference only exacerbated the situation. After demanding that the incident be verified, Obama elected to cancel the meeting and went off to spend some time with other leaders.
That inimical nations might engage in badmouthing each other’s leaders is an occasional hazard but even there trade and commerce dictate a certain civility and there are no cases that one can recall where adversaries not at war have gone this far.
For two nations that have military pacts and a level of high interdependence this is an unfortunate development. As much as America needs a friendly country in the Far East so too does the Philippines need to keep Washington happy.
Was President Obama justified in canceling a very important meeting following the end of the rather clumsy and frosty G20 summit in China?
While there were rumors he had retracted for the sake of the greater good and separated America from the president for whom he has no respect nothing concrete was done to ameliorate the situation.
Instead Duterte upped the stakes by declaring an emergency in the country saying it was natural corollary to the bombings in Davao.
He could have risen above the rudeness and gone for the greater good. By the same token should Duterte stop living up to his reputation as a “this is what get” sort of guy who shoots from the hip. If you shoot from the hip, your nation might have to pay a price. Now, there might be some people who feel he is one heck of a guy for not being intimidated by the US President. But the more circumspect advisers must be stunned at the reversal by Obama and wondering how to engage in damage control.
The Duterte protocol (or lack of it) does not include any sense of apology so that would be a block. One also cannot see Obama overly worried about making peace as he saunters into the straight of his presidency. While one can expect a decent amount of feverish activity at the support levels as ruffled feathers are calmed, for now the Philippines’ president might realize that when the buck stops with you and you are not simply making off the cuff remarks in an election then being a maverick comes with a price.
Now, usually such political gaffes are unintended to be heard like in cases where the microphone is still on or you are being secretly taped and pay the price for indiscretion. Not often do you have a bitterness through bluntness but President Duterte certainly lived up to his reputation and beyond when he slurred US President Obama with multiple yelps of profanity just before they were supposed to have their first one to one meeting.
That Duterte made the comment at a press conference only exacerbated the situation. After demanding that the incident be verified, Obama elected to cancel the meeting and went off to spend some time with other leaders.
That inimical nations might engage in badmouthing each other’s leaders is an occasional hazard but even there trade and commerce dictate a certain civility and there are no cases that one can recall where adversaries not at war have gone this far.
For two nations that have military pacts and a level of high interdependence this is an unfortunate development. As much as America needs a friendly country in the Far East so too does the Philippines need to keep Washington happy.
Was President Obama justified in canceling a very important meeting following the end of the rather clumsy and frosty G20 summit in China?
While there were rumors he had retracted for the sake of the greater good and separated America from the president for whom he has no respect nothing concrete was done to ameliorate the situation.
Instead Duterte upped the stakes by declaring an emergency in the country saying it was natural corollary to the bombings in Davao.
He could have risen above the rudeness and gone for the greater good. By the same token should Duterte stop living up to his reputation as a “this is what get” sort of guy who shoots from the hip. If you shoot from the hip, your nation might have to pay a price. Now, there might be some people who feel he is one heck of a guy for not being intimidated by the US President. But the more circumspect advisers must be stunned at the reversal by Obama and wondering how to engage in damage control.
The Duterte protocol (or lack of it) does not include any sense of apology so that would be a block. One also cannot see Obama overly worried about making peace as he saunters into the straight of his presidency. While one can expect a decent amount of feverish activity at the support levels as ruffled feathers are calmed, for now the Philippines’ president might realize that when the buck stops with you and you are not simply making off the cuff remarks in an election then being a maverick comes with a price.
