It is bad form to attack a fellow columnist, so I must be kind to the President of the United States of America, who appeared in this slot yesterday.
As his political career draws to a close, Barack Obama is proving that
he has a great future as a journalistic commentator. I salute him: the
newspaper trade needs all the talent it can get in these trying times.
Besides, it is reassuring to know that he is a friend of this country. One of his first acts as president was to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, so some of us formed the view that he thought the Anglo-American relationship was no longer all that special. Seven years later, we are being proved wrong.
It turns out Mr Obama now thinks it is so special that it authorises him to take part in our electoral process.
Besides, it is reassuring to know that he is a friend of this country. One of his first acts as president was to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, so some of us formed the view that he thought the Anglo-American relationship was no longer all that special. Seven years later, we are being proved wrong.
It turns out Mr Obama now thinks it is so special that it authorises him to take part in our electoral process.
Oddly enough, this has never
happened so publicly before. True, everyone knew that Ronald Reagan
wanted Margaret Thatcher to win the general elections of 1983 and 1987,
but he kept his help private and did not advise the British how to vote.
Never in our democratic history can the leader of a foreign power have climbed so clearly on to our hustings to tell all our citizens what one side – 10 Downing Street – wanted.
Mr Obama’s most famous electoral message was “Yes, we can”. His electoral message to the British people is “No, you can’t”.
If we want influence, security, free trade, democracy and the rule of law, we can get these things only by staying in the European Union, he informs us. We cannot contemplate living – as his own country so proudly does – as a wholly independent state. If we do, we “go to the back of the queue” in trade, he told the press conference last night [a veiled threat to Britain, punishment, if you will, for being displeasing to Obama, who now considers himself a world leader ~ editor].
The president has spent most of his time in office neglecting old allies and seeking new ones, being chummier with Iran than Israel and with Castro than Cameron.
He belatedly praises the network of alliances and programmes – the Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, Nato, the United Nations Security Council – which helped create the post-war order, but what he has actually done is to tiptoe away from Nato commitments, hoping that the EU will take up the slack.
The question one needs to ask today, with some urgency, is whether that order is still working, and how, exactly, the European Union is assisting it . . . . . . . . . read the full UK's Telegraph story, here.
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Related article:
Never in our democratic history can the leader of a foreign power have climbed so clearly on to our hustings to tell all our citizens what one side – 10 Downing Street – wanted.
Mr Obama’s most famous electoral message was “Yes, we can”. His electoral message to the British people is “No, you can’t”.
If we want influence, security, free trade, democracy and the rule of law, we can get these things only by staying in the European Union, he informs us. We cannot contemplate living – as his own country so proudly does – as a wholly independent state. If we do, we “go to the back of the queue” in trade, he told the press conference last night [a veiled threat to Britain, punishment, if you will, for being displeasing to Obama, who now considers himself a world leader ~ editor].
The president has spent most of his time in office neglecting old allies and seeking new ones, being chummier with Iran than Israel and with Castro than Cameron.
He belatedly praises the network of alliances and programmes – the Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, Nato, the United Nations Security Council – which helped create the post-war order, but what he has actually done is to tiptoe away from Nato commitments, hoping that the EU will take up the slack.
The question one needs to ask today, with some urgency, is whether that order is still working, and how, exactly, the European Union is assisting it . . . . . . . . . read the full UK's Telegraph story, here.
_________________
Related article:
London’s Mayor Calls White House a ‘Hypocrite’ for Pushing E.U. Membership
DAILY MAIL COMMENT: This U.S. President is the last man Britain should heed :
The tone was patronising, the language menacing – and the message not only hypocritical but, frankly, insulting.
Certainly,
Barack Obama has every right to say he thinks it’s in America’s best
interests for Britain to remain in the EU, if that is what he believes.
But he has no business to come here and preach that submission to Brussels is good for the people of the UK.
Obama's approval is about DOUBLE that of Bush during this point in his presidency.
ReplyDeleteGame over.
Obama's overall Gallup approval for his full term is lower than any preceding president. Besides, you think it a good deal when his approval rating goes up for doing absolutely nothing. Kind of funny to me.
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