The Obama-Brown Presser: How Special Special Really Is

It's "Love Actually" only in real life.

" It is not an idle question, since it lies at the heart of the imaginary split that the Obama administration has caused between Britain and the United States"
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As it is, as you say, imaginary why do you spend so much time writing about it? Or was this post all some sort of meta-silliness?

tee hee. You missed that Obama brought up the Queen as an afterthought, just as if he remembered "oops, I forgot to mention the Queen." And Brown after all, had just mentioned Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, when he mentioned Tim Geithner, the Secretary of State. But I agree that it was all appropriately love-dovey. I'm curious about when Obama mentioned "the UK," "Great Britain," and "England," since those terms aren't synonymous. I wonder what significance the British press will read into those choices.

Whatever.

Why is Michael obsessed over this non-issue? I suspect that if you were to poll the American people about current events and the Obama administration, nobody would be aware of this "imaginary rift."

Apparently it's the British press that's all over it. Perhaps we should turn it all over to the Ministry of Silly Walks.

@PD: Good one! Or, give the green light for a select group of journalists to compete in this springs Upper Class Twit of the Year contest...

"The two men could have held hands and it would not have seemed odd".
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Wow Michael, you are really going out on a limb here today with that statement. You will have the libtards all in a tizzy today.

I hope Obambi didn't forget to take the right set of CD's to exchange the ones he gave to Brown earlier in the year. The ones that actually work on British CD players!

P-nnto:
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Conventional silliness; meta-journalism. No effort to answer questions idly posed, only to tease.
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MS:
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Quit dwelling on the inane. Or take your "no relevance zone" to one of the Britpapers that specialize in non-news.

Michael Scherer:
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I have been dwelling on this for about a month: Which is more intimate, a "special partnership" or a "special relationship"?
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Really? Is that too much information, perhaps?
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It is not an idle question, since it lies at the heart of the imaginary split that the Obama administration has caused between Britain and the United States.
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I'm having trouble understanding you...it is not an "idle question", even though its relevance is primarily to something that does not exist in reality...some "imaginary split"?
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Isn't that sort of like saying
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"It is not an idle question, since it lies at the heart of the imaginary split that the Obama administration has caused between Brett Michaels and Destiny on 'Rock of Love'."
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?
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Doesn't this sort of thing border on gossip? What's the payoff? What's the punchline? Is this just more irony for its own sake again? It's not exactly "ideology of fluff", but isn't there more to this than just the (ridiculous) sense of it?
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How about answering this question: "Despite or because of the amount of fake or real affection between these two men or the nations for which they are temporary public employees, will Britain enact stimulative spending in the amount requested by the Obama administration?"

MS - what on earth are "dinosOurs"?

I find it particularly interesting that most people here do not give a second thought to the U.S.-British relationship as being even remotely important. One of the main reason the U.S. under Bush was criticized abroad was because of the way it snubbed other nations (see Spain, India, all of Latin America).

The British newspapers do not specialize in "non-news" (at least not the Guardian, which is what MS quotes). Unlike Americans, the average British person, if they have a smidgen of a brain to give to international relations, does care the relationship between the two nations. I find it interesting that Americans couldn't care less what the British think.

" ... The joint press conference was a love fest.... These two countries are tight. Like partners. Or relations. Or kin. Or whatever. .."

And should those brits get out of line ...

Do we have to make such a public show of it?

Remember: The couple that kisses passionately one moment may divorce the next.

Pax brittanica? These albions killed Americans. MS, remind us that the brave Americans who battled against these brits are STILL American patriots.

Emil:
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Half of America is aghast at the fact that Tony Blair went along with the last Administration's follies so completely.
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We don't exactly know what to think of the idea that Britain essentially let her friend the US drive drunk, maybe.
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I know (anecdotally) that a lot of people in the states didn't really think that Blair actually believed the things he was saying in support of Bush or his policies, and I can remember vividly discussions that were had speculating on what was really going on in his mind, and whether the catastrophes of the past six years could have possibly been avoided if Britain had stood firmly with Europe prior to the invasion (not that Britain is responsible for Bush, of course).
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Whenever pressed about the propagandist's term "coalition", the Bush Administration would invariably point to Britain "and many, many other countries" as the "international" element. They would endlessly exploit Blair's cooperation in order to broadcast the fiction that the invasion was an extension of the first Gulf War coalition. Unfortunately (for the Iraqi people first and foremost), the propaganda worked upon a significant enough segment of the population here.
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We needed true friendship; the kind of friendship that quietly hides the car keys and hand-gun ammunition from one's wildly inebriated mate. Blair provided Bush with something else, and that something helped distort the true image of events for the American people for many years longer than would have been the case otherwise. So many of us wish that Blair could have done what we were unable to do even after a majority of our country discovered the truth about what we had done: say "no" or "no more" to our bizarrely inept and misguided leader.
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None of this is to say that Britain bears any responsibility for the terrible, inconceivable errors and misdeeds my nation has committed over the past six years. In fact, we should be both apologizing profusely and expressing our profound gratitude to the people of Great Britain, the nation from which ours was created.
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We don't take the affections of the British people for granted in the United States, any more than we (now) believe that we are beloved in the eyes of the world. Americans, especially engaged news consumers here in the states, do care about what the British think, but it may be beyond our general understanding, unfortunately. A miserably incompetent, chauvinist press corps here in the US adds to Americans' misunderstandings as well.

"These albions killed Americans. MS, remind us that the brave Americans who battled against these brits are STILL American patriots."

Geez. Talk about a chip on your shoulder.

I have been dwelling on this for about a month: Which is more intimate, a "special partnership" or a "special relationship"?
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Maybe you should have spent that time learning how to write.

stuartzechman Says:

" .. terrible, inconceivable errors and misdeeds my nation has committed ...

With a patriot like this who needs a Benedict Arnold?

" .. we should be both apologizing profusely and expressing our profound gratitude to the people of Great Britain, the nation from which ours was created. .."

O, say can you see ...
I still believe in teaching our kids that our American patriots fought and died to create and forge this great nation - the land of the brave and the free and the Star Spangled Banner and the Declaration of Independence (from nasty euroNeanderthalian creeps).

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Emil Says:
" ..Geez. Talk about a chip on your shoulder. .."
YEP!

stuartzechman Says:

" .. the terrible, inconceivable errors and misdeeds my nation has committed ... In fact, we should be both apologizing profusely .."

What next - call in the Iraqis and the Afghanistanis and the Al-Quedas and the Panamanians and the Grenadans ... and the Cubans and the Chileans ... and the Vietnamese and the Congolese and Zimbabweans and - and keep 'apologizing profusely' day in and day out?

I am starting to think, Michael Sherer, that you are an anglophobe. You focused a few weeks ago on a non-existent rift between our two countries (a few tabloids had picked up on Barack Obama's underwhelming gifts) and repeatedly cited narrowly-held opinions. Now another.

That the British press is 'ultra-sensitive' is simply not true. It is too much of a generalization to assume so. Contrary to what Michael Sherer could possibly understand, there are as many sides to the British press as there are to the American media.

Moreover, I feel that such a statement is a tad rich when it comes from a detached Republican who consistently fails to notice the ultra-hypersensitivity of his own party.

stuartzechman:

I completely agree with you about Tony Blair. The man, I believe, was completely taken by Bush's words and it took him down, hard. The impression that I get now, however, is that the U.S. (not necessarily the American people, and not necessarily the State Department, but whomever it was in the Administration who uttered that "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment") acts the way Paris Hilton would act when faced with a fan -- with an air of condescending and a lack of seriousness.

Sure, it doesn't help matters that Gordon Brown is seriously needing a boost in the polls and is trying to milk Obama's presence in the UK for all its worth. But it's interesting, especially in light of other comments on this post, how the special relationship is seen on both sides.

FlownOver's question, "Despite or because of the amount of fake or real affection between these two men or the nations for which they are temporary public employees, will Britain enact stimulative spending in the amount requested by the Obama administration?", for example, sounds straight out of Love Actually's portrayal of the U.S. government. The UK is a sovereign nation and will enact spending in the amount it sees fit. Whether it reaches an agreement with the United States on a number is one thing, but for the US to expect UK to act on the orders or requests of the Obama Administration is a bit bizarre.

Emil Says:

" .. for the US to expect UK to act on the orders ..of the Obama Administration is a bit bizarre. .."
Did Bush at some point commit USA into spending over $200 billion (sourcing aircraft stuff) in UK over a 10 year period?

Where would those snooty brits be without big bad USA?

Those brits owe us. [Have these brits paid us brutal war reparations yet?]
It is time that he who pays the piper calls the tunes.

...I should also hasten to add that the lunatic rightist fringe's thoughts anything are given far too much exposure, due to our conflict-mongering and irresponsible press.

Stop It
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by digby
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Rick Sanchez just asked Wolf Blitzer if the fact that Europe loves Obama will hurt him at home. (Blitzer said he didn't think so.)
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But I have to wonder: aside from a handful of neocon nutballs and the far right fringe of the Republican party, do villagers actually believe the rest of the country hates Europe? Really? If that's the case, perhaps the better question is "who don't Americans hate?" If Europe really is considered an enemy to the extent that Europeans liking our president is a liability, then I'm hard pressed to think of any country we could consider a friend.
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CNN shouldn't be feeding this idiocy and I have to wonder where it came from. Did somebody tweet Sanchez with the question?

You might not know it from superficial observation, i.e. watching CNN-US, but sentiments like these are, in actuality, limited to a small audience of hardcore rightists.

Sorry, that should have been "...the lunatic rightist fringe's thoughts on anything..."