OUTRAGEOUS – AT 10:06 P.M. ET:  We reported last night on the arrival of first lady Michelle Obama in South Africa, and we pointed out that the country is a mess, a nightmare of crime and violence, rarely discussed in the trendy press of the West.

Now the government of South Africa is demonstrating just how clownish the place is.  The president of the nation is snubbing America's first lady, the wife of this country's first black president:

South Africa President Jacob Zuma has snubbed the visiting Michelle Obama by sending his prisons minister to meet the first lady at the airport and failing to see her during her three-day stay.

Mr Zuma was out of the country for the first day of Mrs Obama's second solo trip abroad on Tuesday and although he returned on Monday night, aides said he was "not available" to meet her.

Instead, he arranged for Corrective Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to greet her on her arrival in Pretoria on Monday night, and one of his three wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, to meet her briefly on Tuesday.

Great way to make friends in America.  For Mrs. Obama, this is an important trip.

...it coincides with a cooling in relations between South Africa and the United States. Last week, President Jacob Zuma issued a sharp riposte to an appeal by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to African leaders to help remove Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi.

"We strongly believe that the (UN Security Council) resolution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign military occupation," he told parliament the day after Mrs Clinton's speech.

COMMENT:  What a jerk.  He's advertising his government's vulgar association with Gaddafi, a thug and murderer.  We had hopes for South Africa when apartheid ended, but those hopes are fading.

June 21, 2011