A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES – AT 9:01 P.M. ET:  What an embarrassment.  On a number of issues, Canada now has a tougher foreign policy than does the United States.  Still one more example of Obama's display of weakness and indifference, which is sure to invite trouble down the road.  From Fox: 

The U.S. won’t follow Canada’s lead in boycotting a United Nations arms control conference chaired by North Korea, even though the State Department concedes the rogue regime has flouted its own disarmament obligations to the Security Council and the international community.

"We have chosen not to make a big deal out of this because it's a relatively low-level, inconsequential event," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Earlier in the day, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird called North Korea's chairmanship at the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Disarmament "absurd" and a "huge blow to the credibility of the United Nations."

"It's important that Canada take a stand," Baird said during a press conference. "North Korea is simply not a credible chair of a major non proliferation conference. It undermines the integrity of both the disarmament framework and the United Nations."

"We are no longer going to go along to get along," he added. Canada will not rejoin the discussion until North Korea leaves the seat on Aug. 19. It assumed leadership on June 28.

COMMENT:  Cheers for Canada and its prime minister, Steve Harper, and not for the first time.  Harper has shown himself to be a stand-up guy, just as Obama is a sit-down guy – one willing to sit down with anyone.   Today's expression of American weakness follows last week's announcement by the Obama administration that we are sitting down with the Muslim Brotherhood, despite that group's hateful ideology and history, without getting anything in return. 

Our enemies watch, and they must marvel at this.

July 11, 2011