How many times should a president congratulate Barack Obama, one or two times? Most of the world leaders congratulated Obama two times: first, when he won the elections, and second time, when he officially became president of the US, after the inauguration.
Boris Tadic, Serbian president, decided that one time is enough, so he congratulated after Obama won the elections on November 5th, but not after the inauguration. The Serbian presidential cabinet says that congratulating again would be overdoing it and that the Serbian president never does that two times.
Well, almost never, because he did congratulate Russian president Medvedev two times. But that surely a different thing. Russia is, unlike the US, a superpower, and their elections were far more important and exciting to us than the American predictable election circus. Tadic send his congrats to Medvedev first time when he won the tense Russian elections, and once more, when Medvedev took over from Putin, which was another extraordinary and unexpected moment in Russian politics.
So what’s wrong with Obama, then? Does he not deserve some extra special diplomat-love from Tadic? The internet buzz says that Tadic was not satisfied with mr Obama’s choice of associates, mostly with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
Another option is that the letter got lost in the snail mail routes, and my guess is that it’s still somewhere in Amsterdam or London, waiting to be delivered.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
damn air mail!
Tadic must be feeling confused inside, on the one hand Obama’s VP was probably the strongest advocate of Bosnia during the 1990s in the US Senate; and his Secretary of State braved sniper-fire in Tuzla
. On the other hand, IIRC, his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel was associated with or a member of the Serb lobby (of course there is a large diaspora population in Chicago).
Maybe he will just send President Obama a passive-aggressive toned, belated “congrats” message?
now, that’s a shame. cuz mr. tadic, if i’m not mistaken, is quite good looking and has a full head of pretty pretty silver hair. and my president is quite good looking, too. as dostoyevsky said, beauty will save the world. imagine the joy and wonder a tadic-obama team could bring to the world. shame.
{ 1 trackback }