Transatlantic dissonance – I love that description!
Hey Paulie two quick questions
1. Is this what happens after 50 years of living in the shadow of John Lennon?
2. Has it ever occurred to you that if you yourself ever visited a library and did some research on prenuptial agreements you might not have had to fork over $48 million to gold digger Heather Mills (whom every body including your daughter Stella but you – knew was in it strictly for the money)?
by Toby Harnden
Well, at least he’s still got Sir Paul McCartney. At the White House last week, the 67-year-old crooner was gushing in much the same manner as his own groupies did at Shea Stadium in 1965. “I’m a big fan, he’s a great guy,” McCartney told American critics of President Barack Obama. “So lay off him, he’s doing great.”
Later, McCartney serenaded the First Lady with a rendition of Michelle and, receiving a prize from the Library of Congress, took a cheap shot at President George W Bush that was as unfunny as it was unoriginal. “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.” Bush. Doesn’t read books. Stupid. Geddit?
The problem for the President is that even if the former Beatle does speak for billions, the overwhelming majority of those are overseas. Polls show that around 10 per cent of those who voted for Obama in 2008 now disapprove of his performance and the heavy turnout of young people and black voters among the 69 million who back him will not be repeated again.
[…]
Perhaps their biggest problem is that it was not just McCartney’s dyed hair and 1960s songs that seemed so retro. His adulation of Obama struck the wrong chord because few outside the White House bubble are in that place any more. It is now permissible – even fashionable – to have a go at the man once hailed as the Messiah.
McCartney’s banalities were an example of a transatlantic dissonance that is all too apparent these days. Whereas Europe is stuck in November 2008 and still hopelessly in love with Obama, Americans have got over the historic symbolism of it all and are now moving on as they live with the reality.
That reality has now begun to dawn on some of Obama’s natural constituency – Hollywood and the Left. The “no drama Obama” demeanour that served him so well on the campaign trail is now becoming a liability.
Read the rest here: Obama loses the Left: suddenly it’s cool, to bash Barack
Update -Kyle Smith points out the obvious – that ever since Obama became POTUS – the”special” has gone out of the special U.K.-USA relationship. The British – who were some of Obama’s biggest cheer leaders overseas in 2008, have found out that it was a one-way love affair.
by Kyle Smith
Thanks in large part to a deadly debacle at sea, things are getting shockingly tense between the US and a critical ally.
Israel? Yes. But also Britain.
President Obama’s drill-sergeant policy toward BP — yell more, maybe they’ll shoot straighter — has started to annoy British writers who say Obama’s attacks on BP do more harm than good.
“This crisis has injected an animus into transatlantic relations unseen since the days of George III,” said Telegraph columnist (and former BP exec) George Trefgarne.
Daily Mail columnist Stephen Glover said Obama harbored “anti-British prejudice” dating all the way back to Obama’s allegation in “Dreams from My Father” that his grandfather was tortured by the British army during the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya.
Obama “resembles a judge who, having sentenced a penitent offender, demands again and again that he be brought up from the cells to receive another dressing down for the same crime,” wrote Glover, adding, “It is pretty clear that Mr. Obama does not much like anything that is British.”
Immediately after taking office, Obama insulted Churchill (a bust of whom he returned to Britain), the Queen (by giving her an iPod loaded with his speeches) and then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown (whom he dismissed after a 30-minute chat, giving him a bunch of DVDs that won’t even work in the UK).
Last year a State Department official told Britain’s Daily Telegraph, “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.” Meanwhile, new Prime Minister David Cameron keeps saying the UK’s friendship with the US will henceforth “be solid but not slavish.”
When Cameron moved into 10 Downing Street (no doubt admiring his freshly returned Churchill bust), it was as if the transatlantic Facebook status went from “In a special relationship” to “It’s complicated.”
BP has said from the beginning that it will bear the cost of the Gulf spill. It will also face huge civil suits. Obama doesn’t need to act in order for BP to be punished.
Nevertheless, to make the boss look like he’s in charge, his administration keeps threatening BP with thuggish language (“We will keep our boot on their neck”) and made public a criminal probe — something the Justice Department doesn’t normally do until it actually files charges.
Read the rest U.S. relations are not A-UK
Tags: Toby Harnden
