Obama Reschedules Pacific Trip, Citing Health Care, Manners

Posted on Mar 18, 2010

White House / Pete Souza

The White House already postponed the president’s trip to Indonesia (with a stopover Down Under) once in order to get health care done. With lobbying still to do and fears of having to cancel at the last minute, the trip has been pushed to June and could be combined with a visit to India.

Sunday Morning Herald:

Obama took the decision, under pressure from some Democrats, once it became clear that a crucial vote in the House of Representatives on health reform would not take place until Sunday afternoon at the earliest.

“We did not want, at 10:00 on Sunday morning to make a call to the Indonesians and the Australians and say, ‘I know we were going to be there in a matter of hours, but we’re not going to be there.’ ”

“I think that would cause some problems just on common sense and manners.”

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