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" Once again, we discover that The Washington Post is covering a world with which the rest of us are unfamiliar, and that there are members of the current administration who are more than willing to set up housekeeping there. The Post reported on Saturday that the president is considering visiting Hiroshima, where he would deliver an address on nuclear non-proliferation. This seems like a fine place to deliver such an address, but what do I know? There are, of course, domestic political problems with the idea, however. The White House is well aware of the potential for domestic criticism around a Hiroshima trip, especially in an election year. Republicans have consistently portrayed Obama&amp;#039;s foreign policy as feckless and weak, and the president was ridiculed in 2009 when he\u00A0bowed to the Japanese emperor\u00A0in Tokyo. During the 2012 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Mitt Romney accused Obama of undertaking a global\u00A0&amp;quot;apology tour.&amp;quot; OK, so here we see the problem\u2014and it&amp;#039;s not that the Post is treating what Republicans said as fact simply because Republicans said it. Per the Post&amp;#039;s own link, the &amp;quot;bowing&amp;quot; episode bothered both Laura Bush&amp;#039;s old flack and someone called Political Pistachio. And Mitt Romney is an unprincipled has-been. However, having taken this nonsense as seriously as it has, the Post then finds an administration official willing to say that the sky is a lovely shade of burnt sienna. White House aides say they are confident that Obama can pay respects to the victims of the war\u2014on both sides of the Pacific\u2014without provoking a major political backlash in the United States. The feeling within the White House is that a Hiroshima visit, while not crucial to the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance, would offer the president another opportunity to recognize history without being, in his words, &amp;quot;imprisoned&amp;quot; by it. This person is a dolt. The president could repurpose the Enola Gay and fly it into Hiroshima personally, and the monkeyhouse would go absolutely mad. (A good indication of this is the fact that John Kerry&amp;#039;s visit to the city over the weekend occasioned an uproar among the inmates of Bedlam.) Either the White House doesn&amp;#039;t give a damn, which is how it should be, or somebody in there continues to believe in the Unicorn Of Understanding that the administration pursued for far too long. I hope he goes. I hope he gives the speech he apparently wants to give. But I have no illusions about what will happen in this country if he does. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a43832/obama-hiroshima-trip/>