Sarkozy, Brown furious with Obama

The Telegraph reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown "rowed with Obama over Iranian nuclear announcement."

The President is believed to have angered the European leaders by insisting on delaying a joint press conference until after he had chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Mr Obama is said to have been worried the announcement would undermine the impact of his session on nuclear non-proliferation. ...

According to French officials, Mr Brown and particularly Mr Sarkozy wanted to make a declaration on Sep 24, either at the Security Council meeting chaired by the US president or just afterwards. ...

But Mr Obama did not want to "spoil the image of success" of his disarmament session, which passed a resolution to work towards a nuclear-free world and a host of measures designed to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stocks.

After much arm-twisting, Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy were persuaded to delay the announcement until the opening of the G20 summit the next day in Pittsburgh.

The account led Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard blog to wonder,

Frankly, I rather suspect that the report is not only true, but is part of why the Obama magic failed so dismally today when the won could not secure the Olympic gravy train for his Chicago buddies. Europe has sen though Obama in a very short time – and found that there is not much more than form there. Great with a TelePrompTer, not much else.

Personally, my readings on the Olympics kabuki dance make me think that Obama could have been handing delegates gold bullion bars and Chicago still would have been dropped. The IOC has little regard for the US Olympic Committee and that wasn't going to be overcome for the 2016 selection.

Even so, word gets around. The Danish press have been distinctly un-complimentary toward President Obama, reporting, for example, the reaction of Hans Bonde, professor of sport history at the University of Copenhagen: "He [Obama] clearly won the battle in the media, but it turned out indeed to be indifferent. IOC members did not feel important, and they were indeed reduced to spectators and not players."

Yeah, sort of like Sarkozy and Brown.