WASHINGTON — Rooms were booked, limousines waiting, snipers staking out positions. Then President Barack Obama ditched plans to visit Guam, Indonesia and Australia — health care trumping the trip to Asia.
Obama’s decision Thursday morning to call off his first international trip of the year left scores of White House aides holding briefing books in Jakarta, Indonesia and Sydney; motorcades lined up with nowhere to go; and security personnel in place at sites Obama wouldn’t visit.
Whenever the president leaves Washington, a mobile White House moves ahead of him.
With the fate of the health care bill in the balance, Obama’s advisers decided against making a call at the final minute — and risk offending his would-be hosts.
“We did not want at 10 o’clock 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,’ ” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “I think that would cause some problems, just on common sense and manners.”
So many of the same advance staffers — the White House employees who go ahead of Obama before he leaves to scout locations and logistics — will head back to Indonesia and Australia later this spring for a rescheduled June trip.
