Better Take Care of Your Friends

I've been so annoyed at what a jerk Obama's been to the "Special Relationship" between the USA and the UK (let alone all our other allies), that I am copying this entire Mark Hemingway post from NRO - The Corner on Principle. ARRGH!

He's Just Not That Into The Special Relationship
[Mark Hemingway]

It's the top story in our web-briefing, but if you haven't heard the President gave U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown a gift 25 DVDs of classic American films. Given enough exposure, no doubt Brown will soon develop a taste for the strange and provincial American cultural expression known as "cinema." I hear it's finally starting to catch on abroad. Now here's the gift's Brown gave Obama:

Mr Brown’s gifts included an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, once named HMS President.

Mr Obama was so delighted he has already put it in pride of place in the Oval Office on the Resolute desk which was carved from timbers of Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute.

Another treasure given to the U.S. President was the framed commission for HMS Resolute, a vessel that came to symbolise Anglo-US peace when it was saved from ice packs by Americans and given to Queen Victoria.

Finally, Mr Brown gave a first edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

These gifts are even more impressive and thoughtful than these few paragraphs suggest, given the amazing story behind the Resolute and how it is a symbol of U.S.-U.K. relations. So Brown has clearly outclassed Obama in that regard.

But I also love the symbolism of that final gift — Martin Gilbert's classic Churchill biography. If it seemed a bit tone deaf when Obama returned the Churchill bust that had been in the White House, well it now appears that no less a figure than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is subtly sending a message that Obama should better understand the historical importance of one of his country's greatest leaders. Well played.

I thought this was going to be the time when everyone likes us again, yet here is Obama trashing all our BFFs in order to suck up to the sandpit bullies.

BY THE WAY - This is what my husband said at NRO earlier in the day....

Ignored or Dissed?

Despite the fact that Gordon Brown's address to a joint session of Congress yesterday got 16 standing ovations, the general reaction to the first visit of the British Prime Minister during the new era of hope and change has been one of indifference. His plea to reject protectionism is likely to be given lip service, even as the Porkulus Act authorizes it, but that's about as much as he'll get. The general impression I get around this town is that Britain today is a busted flush — fatally weakened by its own financial mess combined with its currency crisis. Nevertheless, you'd have thought the President's most important ally in Afghanistan deserved better than this. I'm not about to endorse James Delingpole's theory that Michelle Obama was behind it all, but it does look as if the special relationship with Britain is one area of FDR's policy that his devoted disciple will not be following.

I'm not completely convinced of the Telegraph's arguments (yet) but again, I deeply believe Obama needs to break his habit of throwing friends under the bus during this time of global crisis.