© The Associated Press / Charles Dharapak
U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama step off Air Force One as they arrive at London's Stansted Airport, Monday, May 23, 2011.
President Barack Obama is trading in small-town Irish charm for the pomp and pageantry of Buckingham Palace during a two-day state visit to Britain at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Obama arrived Monday night in London, a bit ahead of schedule, because of safety concerns over a volcanic ash cloud being blown toward Britain from Iceland. The shifting path of the ash forced the president to make a hasty departure from Dublin.
While Obama will tackle prickly foreign policy matters in the coming days, the opening rounds of his four-country European tour are all about the personal politics that made him so beloved on this continent as a presidential candidate and in the early days of his term in office.
While in Ireland, Obama embraced the touch of Irish in his family history, drinking a pint of Guinness with a distant cousin in the hamlet of Moneygall and delivering a rousing speech on the ties between the U.S. and Ireland before tens of thousands crammed into the center of Dublin.
In London, the president and his wife, Michelle, will embrace the tradition and history of Britain's royal family, which is experiencing a resurgence in popularity following the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, now known as Princess Catherine.
Comment: Ah, the obscenely materialistic joys of being a psychopath protected by other psychopaths and sheep-dipped so many times that no one knows anymore which "side" you're on. Let's be perfectly clear about what this author did not have the guts to say but which everyone knows: the ISI is the CIA. Headley was working for the psychopaths in power against humans everywhere, first sent on one errand, then another, in order to recruit susceptible, angry young Muslims and to make the war on terror seem real.