The subheadline has the question:
Why is Joe Biden skipping Shinzo Abe’s funeral in Japan?
Never mind that Japan has been a staunch ally of ours since the middle of the last century. Never mind that Abe has been a staunch ally of ours his entire time in office and during his nominally retired years.
The other members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—the Quad—are going to be there to pay their respects.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are set to attend the ceremony alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Regardless of all of that, our President Joe Biden (D) stiffed Abe, and our ally Japan, at his funeral. Biden couldn’t be troubled to make the trip and attend. Instead, Biden sent Vice President Kamala Harris (D), tsar of everything in the Biden administration and doer of nothing, to take up that space.
Attending foreign VIP funerals is one of the traditional duties of our VP.
Attending funerals of heads of state and funerals of important state figures is also a duty of the President–our own head of state.
Biden didn’t trot Harris over to London for that funeral; he went personally.
But Abe wasn’t worth his personal notice?
Eric Hines