Not content with throwing out a bust of Sir Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, President Obama did his best to keep the British press corps out as well from yesterday’s White House meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Not only was the British leader humiliatingly denied a joint press conference in the Rose Garden as is customary, but most British Washington correspondents were kept out too. It was widely felt in London that the president was largely disinterested in the whole affair.
The sour mood in the UK is summed up by Iain Martin, an editor at The Telegraph:
Why couldn’t President Obama have put on more of a show for his British guests? He looked like he simply couldn’t be bothered… on this side of the Atlantic the whole business looked pretty demeaning. The morning papers and TV last night featured plenty of comment focused on the White House’s very odd and, frankly, exceptionally rude treatment of a British PM. Squeezing in a meeting, denying him a full press conference with flags etc… Obama’s merely warmish words (one of our closest allies, said with little sincerity or passion) left a bitter taste with this Atlanticist…
Tim Shipman, Washington Bureau Chief for The Sunday Telegraph and one of Britain’s most influential correspondents on U.S. issues, has also written on the shabby treatment meted out to the British media and the president’s general apathy towards the Anglo-American alliance:
There was a lacklustre quality to it all that did little to assuage the fears that he (Obama) cares not two hoots for the niceties of it all. I would have more insights on the mood and appearance of the president, but like the other DC based correspondents I was deemed surplus to requirements by the White House, who clearly had no intention of letting British and American journalists question the pair, as is customary, for 40 minutes or more.
Obama is a very popular figure in Britain, as he is across Europe. But there’s little doubt that yesterday’s White House debacle as well as his clear lack of interest in the Special Relationship will significantly dent his standing in the UK, especially with opinion makers who play a key role in shaping the president’s image across the Atlantic. Not exactly a smart PR move for a new administration that endlessly boasts about “restoring” America’s standing in the world. If this is how the White House treats its closest ally, I hate to think of the kind of reception it is planning for everyone else.
— Nile Gardiner is the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation.