Updated: US ambassador loves the king

Is U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney serious or is she misquoted? At The Nation, she is reported to have told a small group of newspaper editors meeting her at her residence: “We love your king…”.

Let’s assume she is quoted accurately.

Kenney and another royalist

We can’t think of a similar example of silliness and nonsense from someone with the exalted position of ambassador.

And who is the collective “we”? Count us out!

For us, it is quite outrageous that a foreign ambassador should behave in the manner of a maniacal royalist. For Thais reading this bizarre bleat, she is making a statement that affirms “loyalty” to a foreign head of state. In our memory, not even the remarkably compromised, coup-supporting envoy Ralph Boyce made a claim of love for the king.

Kenny seemed to want the meeting where she made this ludicrous statement to reiterate that the “United States would never interfere in Thailand’s political affairs, and that controversial Article 112 is a legal matter to be sorted out by Thais only.”

But by making the absurd claim of “love,” she is intervening in domestic politics in support of fascist royalists. Is she ignorant, driven by Facebook and Twitter, or is she simply out of her depth? Perhaps all of these.

Related, her claims continue to demonstrate the embassy’s flawed position on lese majeste victim and U.S. citizen Joe Gordon. Joe is in prison for a crime in Thailand that was allegedly committed in Colorado, a state in the country the ambassador is meant to represent.

While the embassy did precious little for Joe, apparently the ambassador has been flummoxed by the ultra-royalist backlash on the embassy’s exceptionally mild comments about Joe’s conviction. How weak-kneed can an ambassador be?

In case the ambassador hadn’t noticed while she decked her halls and went to society events, Joe’s still in jail!

Update: For more on solidarity with Joe, PPT suggests a visit to this website.