FROM THE WONDERFUL GUYS WHO BROUGHT YOU PEARL HARBOR - AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  Credit for that line must be given to advertising ace Jerry Della Femina.  I'm reminded of it now because, coming in under the radar, we have growing problems with Japan.

Another great foreign policy triumph for the Obama administration is the recent election in Japan of a new government that has a clear hostility toward the United States and the American-Japanese alliance.  Defense Secretary Gates is meeting with the Japanese now to try to work out differences, but the going is rough.  The Japanese people, in electing this new crowd of left-leaning politicians, apparently weren't very moved by Mr. Sweetheart in the White House:

TOKYO - Playing hardball with its closest ally in Asia, the Obama administration warned Japan yesterday of serious consequences if it backs out of a commitment to allow the relocation of a US air base on Okinawa.

Gates’s words, during a two-day visit here, were a blunt challenge to efforts by Japan’s month-old government to carve out a more “equal’’ relationship with Washington.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan won a landslide election in August with a vow to be more assertive and less passive in dealing with the United States, which is treaty-bound to protect Japan in time of war.

COMMENT:  We have no report of President Obama doing anything to set right this historic, and critical, relationship.  You know, he doesn't care much for American allies like Britain, Israel, or, probably, Japan.  But if the new Japanese government becomes increasingly anti-American, he'll warm up.

Just wait for the Tokyo speech on how wrong it was to use the atomic bomb.

October 22, 2009