Sunday, February 15, 2009

Obama disses the British

Telegraph reported A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back. The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure. But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Can't have the bust of a war-time Prime Minister in the Oval Office. It might offend the left wing peace-at-any-cost people.
.... American politicians have made quoting Churchill, whose mother was American, something of an art form, but not Mr Obama, who prefers to cite the words and works of his hero Abraham Lincoln.
A Republican, who freed the slaves, even though Southern Democrats treated them like second class citizens with Jim Crow Laws.
Indeed a bust of Mr Lincoln now sits in the Oval Office where Epstein's Churchill once ruled the roost. Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion.
The Mau Mau Rebellion (or Mau Mau Uprising) set the stage for Kenyan independence in 1963. We had a similar Rebellion ourselves, during the last half of the 18th century, but we are now friends with Britain.
Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather.
The British killed many of our other Presidents' ancestors, during the American Revolution, but they have gotten over it.
The rejection of the bust has left some British officials nervously reading the runes to see how much influence the UK can wield with the new regime in Washington.

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