James Fallows, very large tongue in cheek, floats out another failure of the Obama China trip. Both Russia and China voted against Iran today.
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Yet more evidence of pathetic failure of Obama trip to Asia
27 Nov 2009 11:27 am
From the NYT just now, under the headline, "Iran Censured Over Nuclear Program by U.N. Watchdog":
Previous evidence to same effect here. And for previous discussion from "senior government official" on what Obama told the Chinese about Iran, go here. Will wait to see if this weekend's talk shows or opinion sections offer any "hey, wait a minute" reconsideration of their unanimous judgment last week about the way the Obama team was manhandled and stonewalled by the Chinese. I'll wait, but I won't hold my breath.
(Updated thought: Seriously, when does an official part of the chattering class -- one of the weekend talkers, someone from the leading newspapers -- look back on these past two weeks in journalism's effort to represent reality and ask how the dominant narrative could have been so wrong, and wrong in a way that was easily noticeable at the time? Just curious. The guiding motto for the inquiry should be the deathless subhead on Tish Durkin's article: "Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did."
Also, when talking about "leading newspapers," I should make clear that accounts from the WSJ, which still has large bureaus in Asia, were far more balanced and accurate throughout this process than anything else I saw.)
jamesfallows.theatlantic.com |
