It is possible that Obama’s affection for Britain is even less then his affection for Israel. Nile Gardiner updates it  out for us since his last list of insults which he wrote about in  March 2010.  Funny how pro Obama the British were back in 2008 – you guys miss Bush yet?

by Nile Gardiner

In March last year I published a list of Barack Obama’s biggest insults against America’s biggest ally Great Britain, during his time in office. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, including the Gulf oil spill and the White House’s campaign against BP, the now infamous Obama-Sarkozy press conference earlier this year, and the release by Wikileaks of US government documents revealing the Obama administration had betrayed Britain in order to appease the Russians over the New START Treaty.

In honour of President Obama’s state visit to Britain this week, here’s an updated and revised list, as a reminder to readers of the president’s less than stellar track record when it comes to US-British relations. The US president will no doubt be careful not to offend his hosts when he travels to London, and he will receive a warm welcome from the Queen and the Prime Minister, as any American president would. But the prospect of an embarrassing diplomatic gaffe or insensitive remark cannot be ruled out from a world leader whose administration has all too often specialised in them. As I noted in my original piece:

Without a shadow of a doubt, Barack Obama has been the most anti-British president in modern American history. The Special Relationship has been significantly downgraded, and at times humiliated under his presidency, which has displayed a shocking disregard for America’s most important partner and strategic ally.

There are a multitude of reasons for President Obama’s dismissive approach to the UK, and here are a few: an obsession with engaging and appeasing America’s enemies rather than cultivating allies; personal animosity towards Britain because of his grandfather’s role as a Mau Mau supporter in 1950’s colonial Kenya; Democrat resentment over British support for the Bush Administration over Iraq; left-wing disdain for the idea of Anglo-American exceptionalism and world leadership; support for supranational institutions such as the European Union over the supremacy of the nation state.

1. Siding with Argentina over the Falklands

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2. Calling France America’s strongest ally

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3. Downgrading the Special Relationship

Barack Obama very rarely refers to the Special Relationship, and has hardly even mentioned Britain in a major policy speech, either before or since taking office. The Anglo-American alliance is barely a blip on Obama’s teleprompter screen, and he acts as though it simply does not exist. The Special Relationship has also been largely erased from the official lexicon of the State Department, and is barely used by US officials in London. Despite being America’s only major reliable ally when the chips are down, London is now treated in Washington as though it were the same as any other European power, albeit less charitably than either Paris or Berlin.

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6. Placing a “boot on the throat” of BP

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7. Throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office

It is hard to think of a more derogatory message to send to the British people within days of taking office than to fling a bust of Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office and send it packing back to the British Embassy – not least as it was a loaned gift from Britain to the United States as a powerful display of solidarity in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Obviously, public diplomacy is not a concept that carries much weight in the current White House, and nor apparently is common sense.

8. DVDs for the Prime Minister

Readers of this blog will know I’m no fan of Gordon Brown, but whatever one thinks of his third-rate premiership, Brown traveled abroad not as a private individual but as the leader of America’s closest ally. He represented 61 million Britons including the Armed Forces, as well as a huge amount of British trade and investment with the United States. He was however treated shabbily when he visited the White House in March 2009, and denied a Rose Garden press conference as well as a dinner. To cap it all, the decision to send him home with an assortment of 25 DVDs ranging from Toy Story to The Wizard of Oz – which couldn’t even be played in the UK – was a breathtaking display of diplomatic ineptitude that would have shamed the protocol office of an impoverished Third World country.

9. Insulting words from the State Department

The mocking views of a senior State Department official following Gordon Brown’s embarrassing reception at the White House in March last year says it all:

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.

One would have thought that this kind of monumentally shallow insult would have resulted in at least a formal apology and a reprimand for the official involved, but unfortunately Obama administration apologies are strictly reserved for the French and assorted enemies of the United States.

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Read the rest here: President Obama’s top ten insults against Britain, 2011 edition.