Walesa Persona-non-Grata

This is rather stunning.

A guy who could be considered the father of modern day Poland is considered to political to be a visitor to the Obama White House.

Way back in the bad old days of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain there was an electrician who led many, many protest against Soviet occupation and the corrupt Communist Polish government. For his efforts he was arrested many times. He led a movement, Solidarity, that could be given as much credit for the end of the Soviet Union as President Reagan’s policies. He was a labor union leader.

Leah Walesa was deemed to political to be seen in the White House.

Polish leadership had requested Walesa accept Medal of Freedom on behalf of Jan Karski. But they were rejected. Too political.

So, still think Obama is a great foreign policy president? In a matter of a few days Obama and his staff utterly piss off an entire nation of 38 million. First to break was the snafu of calling the Nazi concentration camps “Polish death camps”. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. I mean, let’s face it, Obama is only as good of a speaker as his speech writers are. If he speech writers are not willing to do a tad bit of research, we can’t expect Obama to do any better. Jeez, that is what staffs are for. As a leader (and I am not calling Obama a leader), you expect your staff to make you look good. You hire people you expect will cover your backside. But this was a mistake of his staff, not of Obama’s.

But to turn down Lech Walesa, a union leader for goodness sake, is just plain bad form. But I guess they had to weigh his union activities with the fact that Walesa helped bring down the Soviet Union, a form of government many in the Obama administration undoubtedly admire.