Winston Churchill was, in my opinion, the greatest statesman and wartime leader of the 20th century, and America’s surest friend since Lafayette. In the aftermath of 9/11, the UK sent a bust of Churchill to the President, as token of enduring solidarity from our closest and most natural ally among all the nations of the world. It stood in the Oval Office as a remembrance of how England and America stood shoulder to shoulder in the Second World War, and of how the English-speaking peoples, alone together, rescued Western civilization in one of its darkest hours.
It stood in the Oval Office, that is, until Barack Obama took office in 2009 and promptly sent it back. (Blood is thicker than water.)
Would that we had a Churchill to lead us now. David Gergen thinks so too.
“When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.”
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Have you ever been in the Oval Office? It is surprisingly small. There’s not much you can put in there.
I’m sure that lots of Presidents – maybe every President – returned the stuff which their predecessor had acquired. Personally, I think it would have been nice if Obama put some Mati Klarwein art there. At least he didn’t put the bust up on eBay.
I’ve got no problem with redecorating. This wasn’t just some Rangers pennant George Bush left behind, though. Mr. Obama knew exactly what message he was sending by returning that bust. I was aghast.
Any evidence to support this assertion?
Maybe he just wanted to have portraits of, you know, Americans in the Oval Office. Maybe he didn’t like the bust. Maybe he wanted a statue of Aristotle and another of the Simpsons, so he could view Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer.
What we have here is a clear case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Didn’t Bush sell all the french wine and put in box wine from Texas?
Well, I don’t know what sort of evidence you’d expect me to have.
If you were more interested in understanding affairs of state, and less in barking whenever gravel crunches on the White House driveway (another common variety of Obama Derangement Syndrome), you’d be keeping in mind that a leadership transition in a great nation is a time of anxious uncertainty for that nation’s friends and foes, and as such is extraordinarily fraught with symbol and gesture. It is a time when every other nation whose interests are affected by the diplomatic posture of the great power in transition is keenly attentive to indications as to which relationships are likely to be preserved unchanged, and which might be likely to be radically re-examined, and perhaps radically altered.
Even if the solipsistic and unseasoned President-Elect were such a naif, or so self-centered, as to be oblivious to such ancient diplomatic subtleties, there would have been many on his transition team who would have been quick to point out the effect such a gesture would be likely to have on Britain, our staunchest ally and the home of our mother culture. (It did indeed have such an effect; it was taken as a stinging snub, not quickly to be forgotten.) There is simply no way that this was a casual choice: it would necessarily have been promoted by the President’s staff to the level of a serious question of international protocol — and that the decision to return this gift was made nevertheless, and quite abruptly and publicly so, is by any coherent political logic indicative of its being a message consciously sent.
The reasons why Mr. Obama might have chosen to do this immediately upon taking office are not hard to understand, but let’s not kid ourselves about its significance.
I’m not certain where the reasons are concerned but I’ve been informed [a former Secret Service guy now in Austin] the bust was indeed removed from the Oval Office but it now rests on a pedestal “pretty close” to the First Family’s living quarters.
Mind, I’ve not personally been near the Oval Office since GHW so this has not been personally verified.
I was told [another Secret Service guy] Winston’s bust was replaced by a bust of Serena’s “not bust” (apparently recommended by Mr. Tiger) whether there’s any truth in it, I’ve no idea personally all I’m aware of is Michell’s not happy with anything having to do with Ovals. I’m informed she’s not happy with “The Blue Room” either:
That’s not what I heard…
Malcolm that article you pointed us to says that it has been replaced with a bust of President Lincoln. That is hardly an objectionable choice, replacing the bust of a foreigner with the bust of an American hero (that is its not objectionable unless you are one of those people looking for an excuse to criticize Barack Hussein Obama). Considering that Obama is the first black president, Lincoln seems a pretty likely choice too (I’d have liked Malcolm X, but Obama’s not that kind of man). The bust was on loan anyway.
First, you’re doing Obama a disservice by pretending he was just redecorating. Second, it’s nonsense to think there was no room for a bust.
He was trying to insult the British, and they were in fact insulted. He never tried to correct the misunderstanding, because there was no misunderstanding. David Duff’s blog has a lot on it from the perspective of an Englishman.
As the Telegraph article reports, the bust was lent specifically to George Bush — not in perpetuity — and Obama replaced it with a bust of Lincoln. Ergo it is a “snub” which “would necessarily have been promoted by the President’s staff to the level of a serious question of international protocol?” That is about the silliest thing I have ever read. I did a little research to find out the provenance of this fatuity, and quickly found out that it sprang from the cuckoo clock world of Glenn Beck. Figures.
Obama was elected a year after England booted out their Prime Minister for his lapdog fealty to George Bush. If anyone was snubbed, it would be us, although it’s hard to blame the English for their fury over being led into the Iraq war.
Also, you might want to look up the word “solipsism” in the dictionary. Maybe you meant “insouciant?” Hard to tell in this confused and eminently forgettable post.
Peter, if it were raining outside, and if Glenn Beck were to tell you so, would that mean it isn’t raining? I can only hope you are never about to be hit by a bus with only Glenn Beck standing nearby to warn you.
Dom has it right:
Even if I were to grant your tendentious assumption that it was not Mr. Obama’s intent to insult the British (and that he didn’t have easily comprehensible motives for doing so), he would at the very least have been made aware that to do this as one of his earliest acts in office, and to do so abruptly and publicly, would be taken as an insult by our closest and surest ally. He chose to go ahead with it anyway, and it was indeed taken as an insult. As you are fond of saying, res ipsa loquitur. Either A) he is so gormless as not to be able to understand that this would be the result; or B) he did understand that but really wanted to replace Churchill with Lincoln and cared so little about US – British relations that he couldn’t even be bothered to find a polite way of doing it; or C) he knew very well what he was doing, and did it anyway, because, as Dom says above, he was trying to insult the British. If you truly think it is the “silliest thing you’ve ever heard” that the effect of such a move would be discussed at high levels as regards its perceived effect, you are simply flaunting your willful ignorance of how diplomacy works.
And I know perfectly well what “solipsistic’ means, thank you very much.
“dumbassmarine”, at the time Mr. Obama did this I was most certainly NOT looking for an excuse to criticize him. I had just voted for him, and I was really hoping for the best, and determined to give him the benefit of the doubt. When he made this one of his first acts as President I was appalled.
If Obama had replaced the bust of Churchill with one of himself, that might have been solipsistic, but even that far-fetched example would be a stretch.
There is not a trace of solipsism in returning something which was lent to your predecessor, and the assertion is a gratuitous insult without basis in fact or reality.
That isn’t what I meant at all. If you can’t understand why I might have used that word to describe this person, then just forget it.
Alas and alack, unlike the US cavalry of Hollywood fame I have failed to arrive in time to rescue Malcolm from the dastardly attacks from ‘the Uni-Peeper’. I blame sundry visitors to Chateau Duff for keeping me away from the battle, plus my wife, my cat and, er, David Cameron. (Well, why not? He’s to blame for most things!)
Anyway, here I stand on the now empty battle-field and all I can say is this:
1: It is obvious that Obama does not like Britain and given his Kenyan background and a paternal family line that lived through the Mau Mau uprising that is entirely understandable. And, of course, as a president who dislikes the Brits he is hardly in a minority!
2: The ‘Uni-Peeper’ speaks with forked tongue! That bust disappeared on *the very first day* Obama walked into the oval office as president. Eventually we will hear the conversation, or more likely the peremptory order, that ensued but something like, “Get that fucking old imperialist outta my office” will sum it up.
3: Again, I do not complain because I do realise that as a former Imperial power Britain is far more disliked than liked. It is, I would suggest diffidently, an abiding fault with many of you Americans that you cannot seem to come to terms with the fact that you, too, are disliked for much the same reasons as were were and still are. Get used to it!
4: However, it is when one considers Obama’s intelligence, or perhaps, ‘state-craft’, that one should begin to worry. Long-term allies who share a common political, philosophical and social ethos should be always and forever considered and treated like gold in the bank. When you, as Americans, look around, ask yourself exactly how many (fairly) steadfast allies do you have? And do you want a president who acts like that old advert for body-building when a muscle-bound bully-boy kicks sand in the face of a smaller man? He might not like Brits but a canny president cannot indulge in *personal* likes and dislikes.
5: That immediate, unthinking, reflex re-action of Obama on his very first day in office sent a message which was as clear as could be even to the dimwits in our ‘Ministry for Foreigners’. They, of course, would have noted it, filed it away but drawn the appropriate conclusion. But they would not act on it! The well-known aphorism has it that diplomats are sent abroad to lie for their country, but sometimes they are sent abroad to pretend to be deaf, dumb, blind and without a sense of smell.
However, a lot of Brits picked up the putrid whiff of anti-British sentiment arising from this deeply foolish man and politely held their handkerchiefs to their noses. Well, I did, at any rate!