Obama hindering UK relationship

Former President Bush did a lot of things wrong. And that’s probably an understatement. But there might be one thing that he did exceptionally well. He built our alliance with the United Kingdom.

I’m not saying that in the past seven weeks, since President Obama took office, we have lost our number one ally, but we might be headed towards rocky waters.

It all started when President Obama moved into the Oval Office. One of his first actions as the new president was to remove a bust, or statue, of Winston Churchill, the great British World War II leader. That bust was a gift from the British that symbolizes the very deep connection that England and America have historically had.

Strike one.

Perhaps the Churchill bust is the most fitting symbol of our transatlantic relationship. It was after all, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that cemented our solid alliance. While fighting in World War II together, Churchill and Roosevelt defended freedom and democracy, and began a tradition that every new American President and British Prime Minister visit the other’s country as their first official foreign visit, Time magazine reported.

Correction: that was the tradition. Obama ended that tradition when he decided to visit Canada as his first official foreign visit.
I’m confident that Obama didn’t mean to slight the Brits. It was a lapse in judgment but certainly unintentional. Unfortunately, in the world of foreign affairs, lapses in judgment prove very costly.

If this were the only American-British issue, it wouldn’t be so bad. Seeing as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wasn’t able to be the first leader to host Obama, he took up an invitation from the White House to meet with President Obama. The two leaders originally planned on having a live podium to podium news conference together, just as former President Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair did numerous times. President Obama decided to cancel that news conference according to the New York Daily News.
Strike two.

The president slighted Prime Minister Brown by ending a 60 year tradition, and canceled a news conference with him after the Prime Minister had flown 2,000 miles to meet with him. But, our alliance with Great Britain is so strong, that not even that can really seriously dent our alliance.

It is also a long held tradition for new American and British leaders to exchange gifts during their first official meeting together. According to the Guardian (UK) Prime Minister Brown gave President Obama a pen holder that is made from the wood of a British ship that was involved in fighting ships involved in the African slave trade. This is a wonderful, symbolic gift that shows how vocal England was against slavery.

What wonderful symbolic gift did Obama give to Prime Minister Brown? The answer is Psycho, Star Wars, ET, the Wizard of Oz along with twenty-one other DVDs according to the London Telegraph. That’s right, the president gave our nation’s number one ally twenty five DVDs. Perhaps most worrisome about these DVDs is the fact that depending on how they were coded, American-made DVDs don’t run on British made DVD players.
Strike Three.

To characterize this relationship and exchange of gifts; think of a sixty-year-old marriage built on tradition and symbolism. Valentines Day rolls around, and one person in the relationship gets the other a terrifically symbolic gift that dates back roughly 200 years. The other person in the relationship picks up a few DVDs off the five dollar rack at Wal-Mart for their significant other. But then, the person who bought the $5 DVDs also canceled their dinner out at the last minute (like Obama canceled their joint press conference). And in addition, Mr. $5 DVD and dinner canceler also removes the picture of his significant other in his office at work (like President Obama did with the Winston Churchill statue).

This marriage is headed for rocky waters, just as our alliance is with the British. Obama vowed to improve our standing in the world; I’m afraid he might actually be hurting our standing with our number one ally.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 13 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry