Obama Snubs British Prime Minister, Drawing the Ire of the Brits

  President Obama called off a press conference that was to be held with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown because of snow. (Wasn’t it Obama who not long ago ribbed Washington for calling off school because of snow?)

  This is not playing well with the newspapers in Britain who see this as a snub to their Prime Minister. The British press was there waiting for the press conference but they were left in the cold.

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. The British press corps, left outside for an hour in the cold, can take it and their privations are of limited concern to the public.

   As we can read here there are more writers in Britain who feel basically the same.

By 8pm, the press conference – if there’d ever been one planned – was officially off. The White House press schedule stated: “There will be a pool spray of the meeting.” In layman’s language, that means a small collection of reporters and perhaps two or three quick questions. That means something very short and ample opportunity to dodge anything difficult.

  This writer even questions whether there was a press conference scheduled in the first place. He is questioning President Obama’s integrity. As well as his unwillingness to expose himself  to tough questions.

   He then goes on to take another shot at the president:

After all, there are 132 rooms in the White House at least some of which, presumably, are currently free of snow.

  And another writer had this to say, picking up on the whole Messiah image of this president:

not the standing podium-to-podium with the Messiah image that Mr Brown imagined.

   All through the campaign we were told that America had lost her image in the world and that we needed to rebuild that image. Barack Obama was just the man to do it. Yet in his first meeting with our biggest ally he stubs Gordon Brown drawing the following sentiment:

We get the point, sunshine: we’re just one of many allies and you want fancy new friends. Well, the next time you need something doing, something which impinges on your national security, then try calling the French, or the Japanese, or best of all the Germans. The French will be able to offer you first rate support from their catering corps but beyond that you’ll be on your own.

 President Obama didn’t get off to a rip roaring start with the whole repairing  America’s image with this arrogant move now did he? Or perhaps Britain just didn’t get the memo that the whole world was supposed to love us now that dear leader was in power.