German Chancellor Angela Merkel complained to President Barack Obama on Wednesday after learning that U.S. intelligence may have targeted her mobile phone, saying that would be "a serious breach of trust" if confirmed.
For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.
I imagine Merkel always knew we spied on them. Sadly, our inability to keep our secrets secret compelled Merkel to notice.
And our complete lack of a reputation for seriousness as either a friend or foe means Merkel is free to publicly berate us for doing what everyone tries to do to everyone.
But what really hurt Merkel was President Obama's insistence that he was too busy with Obamacare to talk right then. He asked her to just speak her complaints into the lamp so he could read the NSA summary of the transcript later and respond.
UPDATE: See? Is it so hard to just pretend?
[Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz] Sharif urged an end to the US campaign of drone strikes against extremists. The attacks have infuriated many Pakistanis who see them as violations of the country's sovereignty.
Sharif called for greater counterterrorism cooperation with Washington but said: "I also brought up the issue of drones in our meeting, emphasizing the need for an end to such strikes."
Obama did not mention drones and the two leaders did not take questions.
Pakistan does allow us to use drones from their territory. Who thinks we could carry this out without their cooperation? But we allow the Pakistani leaders to pretend they have nothing to do with the strikes in order to placate politicians who can pretend that fighting jihadis (and getting our aid) isn't vital to their own survival.
So the president just moves the ceremonies along and our drones continue to kill jihadis who threaten both America and Pakistan.
It's instructive, really. Pakistan really could turn to China for more support at our expense (see the Saudi discomfort with us). But they don't. Our willingness to actually kill jihadis counts as an oasis of resolve in a desert of our declining reputation for being a serious friend or foe.
