The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto. 

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

  • “The Falling Cost of Fresh Groceries Brings Food Price Inflation Down”–headline, Times (London), March 3
  • “Rip-Off Britain: Food and Fuel Rises Lead to Highest Inflation Rate in West”–headline, Daily Mail (London), March 3

Smart Diplomacy
…London’s Times reports that [President] Obama’s secretary of state has set off what the Brits call a diplomatic row (rhymes with “plough”):

Argentina was celebrating a diplomatic coup yesterday in its attempt to force Britain to accept talks on the future of the Falkland Islands, after a two-hour meeting in Buenos Aires between Hillary Clinton and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for “friendly mediation” between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said she agreed that talks were a sensible way forward and offered “to encourage both countries to sit down.”

Her intervention defied Britain’s longstanding position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands’ 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in Buenos Aires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands.

Argentina started a war with Britain over the Falklands before, and America ought not to be encouraging another one. In fairness to Mrs. Clinton, this seems to have been a rookie mistake. Politico.com has the transcript of the Clinton-Kirchner exchange, in which Kirchner raises the idea of talks in an innocuous-sounding way, and Mrs. Clinton agrees. But for crying out loud, couldn’t the secretary of state have taken the trouble to get a briefing before visiting Buenos Aires?

Mrs. Clinton, of course, got her current job as a consolation prize after Obama defeated her for the presidential nomination. An inexperienced president probably ought to have picked a seasoned diplomat instead.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.