Obama's Insult to Britain

Anyone following the the news of the past few weeks will be aware of the unbelievable insult that the new American administration paid to Britain on the occasion of Broon's first visit to the Obama White House, denying him a formal dinner, a proper press conference and fobbing him off with an outragously demeaning gift. Unbelievable is truly the word, since the facts of the affair beggar belief. Reading the article by Tim Shipman in the Telegraph, helpfully entitled "Obama 'too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown," I kept wondering how it could get any worse. The next paragraph of the article would then answer my question. It went something like this:

First we learn that Barack Obama has been feeling very tired and overwhelmed, and isn't really prepared for the job. He didn't realise the volume of work that would cross his desk, and isn't a capable enough leader to know how to delegate. This is a huge suprise to anyone who has been living in a cave for the past four years.

This exhaustion, which his press team insists is the result of his heroic efforts in the domestic sphere, is at the root of why he failed to extend even the most basic diplomatic courtesies to the Prime Minister.

However, the tragically overworked messiah's staff also seemed genuinely unfamiliar with the basics of how to handle a visit from the leader of a major country, much less with the specific protocol and expectations to do with visits from a British Prime Minister. More than that, they seemed not to care. British officials reported that their new American counterparts "seemed utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner." They don't have time to deal with what they referred dismissively to as the "diplomatic niceties of the special relationship." When faced with British complaints, they "didn't get what that was all about."

It gets worse. The Telegraph quotes a member of Obama's inner circle as saying that the new president had failed to "even fake an interest in foreign policy." Fake an interest. The president of the United States can't really be asked with foreign policy, but at least he can fake an interest, right? After all, it's not as if he ran on a promise to restore America's image in the world through 'intense, presidential diplomacy.'

Broon brought with him as an official gift a pen holder specially made for the new president out of the timbers of a Royal Navy warship which helped combat the slave trade, sister ship to the one that the Oval Office desk is made from. He also brought outfits and accessories handpicked by Sarah Brown for the females of the Obama clan, along with numerous other minor things. The O-tard, in contrast, presented Brown with a box of 25 Hollywood DVDs. Yes, DVDs. Ones you can get in any high street in Britain. It would have been less insulting to give him nothing at all. The Broon boys got models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, which is quite cool, but you can get them in the White House gift shop. Broon was also, as mentioned, denied a full joint press conference, instead getting a second-rate Q&A session, and even that he had to beg for. It wasn't just thoughtlessness, it was premeditated thoughtlessness. We learned in an update recently that the administration hadn't just sent a staffer out to the mall to pick up the DVDs when they realised they hadn't got Brown anything; the banal assortment, in a unique box, was commissioned well in advance.

After Brown left, someone must have tipped the O-tard off that he hadn't quite handled it as well as he could have and he rang up to apologise, but too little, too late.

This would all be quite funny if it had merely been a personal insult to Brown, confirming once again that he has been put on earth to make Tony Blair look good. Brown certainly viewed it as a highly personal snub from his new best friend whom he had been counting on to save his premiership, and the resulting damage control operation by No. 10 can be credited with keeping the initial story off the front page and the subsequent updates on page 18 below the car insurance ads.

If your outrage at this treatment of Britain's proxy builds too much, it may be heartening to imagine that it was done in solidarity with the British public, most of whom would love to show Brown this sort of disdain, but whose next opportunity, the election, is still a ways away.

Unfortunately, this was not just targeted at Brown, but rather at Britain. This was revealed in the responses of Obama's aides to questioning after the event. As Shipman reported, an aide revealed the true attitude of the administration, becoming quite angry and snapping, "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just like the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

So we know that the administration of 'Constitutional scholar' Obama is ignorant both of the role of Britain in developing the rights, liberties, and institutions which Americans hold dear and of its role as our most important and loyal ally on the world stage today.

Maybe this visit was a success for Brown. It certainly makes him look good in comparison.