I’ve previously written about short-sighted Congressional Democrats snubbing our Colombian friends. Now Hope ‘n Change has insulted Britain. The whole world by now knows of the snub administered to Gordon Brown and his wife during their trip to Washington this week. Granted, Brown is something of a buffoon, but he’s still PM of Great Britain.
Why? That’s the question being asked on both sides of the pond.
On his UK Telegraph Blog, James Delingpole thinks that there might be a ‘Lady Macbeth factor’ at work. That lá Michelle might still be nursing the perverse victimology so evident in her Princeton senior thesis.
[N]o matter how utterly rubbish we have become as a nation in the Blair/Brown years, Britain’s friendship is something Obama will come to regret having dispensed with so lightly. This was not the act of a global statesman, but of a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there.
What was the guy thinking? In researching my new book Welcome to Obamaland, I discovered that Obama’s judgment is pretty dreadful – but this? My favourite theory so far – suggested by presenter Greg Garrison – was that it was a move calculated to please his Lady Macbeth. At the moment in Britain, we’re still in the “Doesn’t she look fabulous in a designer frock” stage of understanding of Michelle Obama. Gradually, though, we’ll begin to realise that she is every bit the terrifying executive’s wife that Hillary Clinton was. Or, shudder, Cherie Blair.
But perhaps there’s another explanation. Taking his cue from the UK press, Baldilocks explains:
Many observers seem puzzled. I’m not and neither is the UK press. It’s about Kenya.
If you recall, before Kenya became Kenya (1963) it was a British colony known as British East Africa. Between 1952 and 1960, there was this little “difference of opinion” between the UK and the natives of British East Africa—primarily from the Kikuyu tribe. That conflict is known as the Mau Mau Uprising. There were tens of thousands of African civilians killed and, according to Wiki, seven to ten thousand Africans interned by the British colonial masters. In Dreams from My Father, President Obama says that his grandfather was tortured by the British during the conflict, though he was not a Kikuyu but a Luo. Guess which prime minister ordered the Mau Mau insurgency to be put down.
Mystery solved. It seems that the president is seeking to humiliate the progeny of those who humiliated his ancestors. Revenge isn’t that complicated a motive.
However, a question remains. Is this any way for a President of the United States to behave?
It’s this last question that has me scratching my head. Even if he doesn’t like Britain personally, Hope ‘n Change must know that the majority of Americans still view Britain with the deepest affection.
So, here’s my thesis: he simply doesn’t care what a majority of Americans hold dear. Because we’re merely the raw material that he’s going to remake.
But it will be interesting to see what kind of reception Hope ‘n Change receives when he visits Britain next month. He’ll be meeting the Queen – that much we know.
Maybe he can insult her as well.
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