Ah, yes, the "Indian snub." It's a pity that half of it is utter BS. From the Washington Post:

The issue loomed so large that Singh addressed the flap Tuesday, explaining that Obama had attempted to call him Saturday. Singh said he had been unable to take the call because he was on his way to Oman and Qatar.

Asked by an Indian reporter why Obama had chosen to "ignore India," Singh said: "That is not true. What happened was we could not establish contact because the time suggested was too short for us to interact. And I was traveling."

So, they appear to have manufactured outrage on the other side of the world as well.

"Fauxtrage" ?

Just like clockwork comes The League of Obama Defenders.

What, precisely, did you expect the leaders of India to do after being snubbed? Get down on the floor, spin in circles, kick and scream? Or downplay the entire incident as any good diplomat would do?

The fact is that Obama didn't even try to contact India's PM until Saturday, long after he had spoken to many other world leaders not nearly as strategically important as India. It was, at best, a diplomatic blunder, and at worst a deliberate snub. To their great credit, Indian officials chose not to inflame the issue.

Give it a rest.

"Long after?" Good grief, don't you EVER look past the first report you see? Here's what the Times of India had to say on the matter:

The official, a key figure in the US-India loop, did not offer any explanation why Obama had not called Singh, but said New Delhi was happy it was placed in the same league as Beijing and Moscow, the other capitals Obama was yet to reach. In a more serious vein, another official explained that "mutually convenient times" could not be found for the call before Singh left for the Gulf region on Friday.

The US President-elect phoned leaders of Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico and South Korea on Thursday and followed it up with calls to President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, and Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari on Friday as he began to connect with the world.

On a specifically geopolitical point, I note that Obama tried to talk to Pakistan and India on the same day, thus putting them both in the same "tier" of world leaders. That's one of those diplomatic things to which we must pay attention, and Obama's team obviously did so.

If you've ever tried to deal with folks on the other side of the world, you know that "mutually convenient times" is neither metaphor nor excuse, but rather a true problem. As I write this, it's almost 9pm in New Delhi (yes, I DO talk to people around the world every day as part of my job, and I have to use FoxClocks to keep world times handy). Toss in the fact that Singh was traveling on Friday (his time) and the diplomatic niceties required in such situations (e.g. "can't show subservience by staying up late or coming in early" on one side and "don't want to look domineering by demanding some sort of overtime from them just to talk" on the other, and travel/security issues on both sides), and scheduling can be a nightmare.

So, Obama talked to a chunk of leaders on Thursday, tried to talk to India as part of Friday's chunk, the combination of timezones and Singh's travel presented problems, and they wound up talking on Saturday.

Once again...there's no story here.