That may be the link of your blogging career.

See also Cosh & Selley.

There is still a difference between having a good time on the way to a memorial service. But a fun time at the memorial service is a bit different.

Reminds me of Bill Clinton at Paul Wellstone's funeral... laughing and joking, and then instantly switching to crying the moment he saw a camera pointed at him.

It's a small club at the top. They have a lot in common - political battles, global events, etc. After all their politics, unseemly as they are, I'd rather have this than the purges we're seeing in North Korea this month.

I don't know if I would use the word "cozy." It has implications that most likely were not there.

I would expect them to travel together on Air Force One for security reasons; which makes me wonder why Jimmy Carter wasn't among them.

And, since they are travelling together and they are/were leaders of the civilized world; I wouldn't expect them to behave any other way except to be polite to each other, engage in small talk, look at pictures of the children and grandchildren; or in Bush's case pictures of his paintings.

However, I'm with Jim P. on the having a good time on the way to the memorial service is far different from taking a selfie while at the memorial service.

These pictures from on board Air Force One show some class while pictures of Obama and the two other Bimbettes taking a selfie at the memorial service look like, oh my gawd!, a bunch of gag-me-with-a-spoon idiot high school valley girls; barf me out. ya know!

Kudos to you, Amy, for bringing fairness into what amounts to a massive overreaction on the part of the conservative media.

> I'd rather have this than the purges we're
> seeing in North Korea this month.

We must choose?

Oh, bullshit, Jim P. You have no clue as what the atmosphere was like at that memorial service. You just brought your own sense of what a memorial service is supposed to be like and gleefully assumed that Obama was doing something so incredibly disrespectful.

It's a good thing that Obama didn't join in the festive dancing -- yes, dancing -- at that service. You'd be demanding a public beheading.

I'm not so offended by the selfies. I mean, they were silly and teenaged... But fer chrissakes, it was an arena event. The only people I've seen be deeply wounded by the transgression are the professional manners people, the experts who got phone calls from Drudge & Company, asking for a cluck. They clucked. But who gives a fuck what they think? Statecraft is about more than doilies and salad forks, or they'd have the gig.

The President is there to bridge precisely the gap of a sensitive human presence and for stalwart national representation. For all I know, selfies are the way to go... Especially with a coltish & unamused First Lady tugging at his rains.

Besides, a giddy teenager is less likely to say something punishingly sanctimonious, which is a hazard with this guy. We got lucky: All I know about his comments at the funeral is that deaf people don't know what he said, either.

Reins. Sorry, I'm weeping with shame over here.

You'll notice that neither Clinton nor Bush in the photos of them together is taking a selfie.

Decorum is important and we are right to expect it from our elected officials.

We are, after all, supposed to be electing adults.

=========================

It's a good thing that Obama didn't join in the festive dancing. ~ Patrick

If he'd joined in the dancing, that would have been questionable as well - it's not our normal funerary practice to dance and sing (unless you're in New Orleans).

However, it would have been understandable and easily defensible as part of being at a funeral in another culture.

Taking a selfie at a foreign funeral is different from joining in a ritual or festivity being practiced by funeral goers of that culture.

Taking a selfie at a funeral indicates a level of frivolity that even joyous dancing does not.

By the way, Obama is not the only one taking heat for the selfie. Thorning-Schmidt and Cameron are also taking heat for their individual lapses of decorum - as they should.

=========================

I read the text of Obama's speech, which has been criticized as showing Obama's usual narcissistic tendencies.

I didn't think it was soul-stirring and moving, as Donna Brazil (CNN) and MSNBC described it. It was a workman-like speech that hit all the salient points.

But it wasn't the exercise in narcissism that the clip of the "I" and "me" portion of the speech excerpted by critics would have you believe.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obamas-speech-at-mandela-memorial-mandela-taught-us-the-power-of-action-but-also-ideas/2013/12/10/a22c8a92-618c-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html

He did refer to Mandela by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, a little too often, implying he was tight with Mandela. He only met the man once, when he was a US senator and exchanged a few phone calls after he was elected president.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/12/09/a-south-africans-guide-to-when-its-okay-to-call-nelson-mandela-madiba/

When I was at a South African friend's house in 1990 watching television with a large group of South Africans as Mandela emerged from prison, I asked one of them about the name "Madiba" and was told that was a name "we" call him.

That led me to believe the name was not for strangers or those not at some level of intimacy with Mandela to use.

The comments on the article I linked indicate otherwise.

Comments from the article include:

I once asked one of Mandela's grandsons about this very question - when is it appropriate to use the term "Madiba"?

His response was that Madiba was a term of "sincere respect and affection", and that it was proper for anyone to use to display that respect and affection. It was not a term to be restricted to family members, to political comrades, to Xhosa people, or to South Africans, and it did not imply intimacy or personal connections.

He further indicated that it would only be inappropriate to be used in a context that was sarcastic, critical of Mandela, or in opposing the political/social positions that Mandela himself advocated.

And

THIS IS FROM THE NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION: 'MADIBA' is the name of the clan of which Mr. Mandela is a member. A clan name is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than a surname, as it refers to the ancestor from which a person is descended. Madiba was the name of a Thembu chief who ruled in the Transkei in the 18th century. It is considered very polite to use someone's clan name.

So, perhaps Obama was not stepping on any social protocol in using it.

Conan pretty much hit the idea I was getting at. There is an expected level of decorum when you are representing your country to the world. If he was following the local customs and danced with the crowd that is being sensitive to the event. Somehow smiling for the selfie doesn't really seem to fit into normal conduct at a memorial service.

Þ :Welch.

Thanks Jim P.; I'll further add that taking a selfie is quite narcissistic - so it fits Obama very well. It does NOT fit the image of the US President. Remember he represents the UNITED STATES when he was there, not himself.

Yeah, but...

OK, OK. You're right.

It's just that this will be perhaps the lowest entry on a very long list of his sins.

I mean, he's famous for bowing to idiots and scoundrels, right? Why get upset about a selfie with a PM from Denmark?

It would be a lot more fun if they hated each other the way their campaigns tell us we're supposed to hate each other.

Except that he didn't take the selfie. At least not by all appearances. In fact, it doesn't even look like they're taking a selfie at all.

Here's the photo everyone's so upset about.

She has two hands on the phone. Which leads me to believe that it's her phone, not his.

Her mouth is open, and Obama doesn't look like he's smiling, either. In fact, it looks more like the three of them are looking at a picture she just took.

I know. It's just so awful how Obama bows to foreign heads of state. Can we send him off to Gitmo now? Oh, wait. Before we do, can I just punch him in the face once, really, really hard? Pretty please?

In fact, it doesn't even look like they're taking a selfie at all. ~ Posted by: Patrick at December 13, 2013 4:14 PM

It was a selfie. According to Thorning-Schmidt, it was a "really fun selfie."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522801/Danish-prime-minister-Helle-Thorning-Schmidt-defends-Mandela-memorial-selfie.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

In an earlier posting on another topic, Patrick, you were extremely critical of and snotty toward some posters who didn't do what you considered an adequate amount of research on a topic. Karma's a bitch, eh?