President Obama has demonstrated his “smart diplomacy” yet again. This time, he snubbed French President Nicolas Sarkozy by writing to his predecessor Jacques Chirac as if he were still a head of state. Jim Lindgren has the story, and speculates:
If we could see the address on the letter to Chirac, it might be clear whether Obama or one of his staff was confused about the identity of the French President. My guess is that this was just a rookie mistake, i.e., bad diplomacy in wording a letter, not confusion about identities. . .
2d UPDATE: As noted by the Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere, the context was the one I suspected. Obama was writing to Chirac as the head of his Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural Dialogue.
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