Obama & His Lap Puss, Muffin

Muffin.

Starstruck David Cameron's embarrassing fawning over Barack Obama and his 'beautiful words'

By Toby Harden

What David Cameron described as his "guys night out" watching basketball with President Barack Obama in the swing state of Ohio was cheesy and embarrassing enough. But has there ever been a speech given by a British prime minister that was quite as cringeworthy as Cameron's "toast" to Obama at last night's State Dinner?

Watch the video. Cameron starts speaking at the 8:20 point and almost immediately hails Obama's "strong and beautiful words". It's downhill from there.

He takes a cheap shot at Richard Nixon - the easiest possible target in front of a gathering of Obamaphiles - and his own Tory predecessor Ted Heath. He makes corny jokes about cricket and Watergate ("call in the plumbers" - Geddit?) and then lauds Obama's "strength, moral authority and wisdom". No mention of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.

Then comes what must surely be one of the most obsequious things Obama - who is well used to adulation - has ever heard. Obama, says Cameron "has pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the entire free world".

What? Pass the sickbag. Whichever way you look at it, that's ridiculous. Under Obama, despite his campaign promises and indeed an executive order when he took office, Guantanamo Bay has remained open. Drone strikes have increased exponentially - it being judged easier to kill suspects than capture and interrogate them. Military trials outside the federal system continue, as does indefinite detention without trial.

Certainly, Obama has delivered some "beautiful words" around the world, starting in Berlin before he was even the Democratic nominee and continuing in Cairo. In Strasbourg, he apologised for the times when "America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" towards its allies.

But Obama has certainly shown arrogance and dismissiveness towards the UK in a way that President George W. Bush never did. Israel considers the US an unreliable ally under Obama. Iran's green revolutionaries might question Obama's "moral authority" after he allowed them to be crushed by Tehran's theocratic regime, as might the Syrian rebels and civilians currently dying at the hands of President Bashar Assad.

Then there was this passage, in which Cameron chucks in the names of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King for no apparent reason at all - other than, presumably and patronisingly, because Obama is black: "Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens. 

“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”

- Sir Winston Churchill

Soph:  Muffin has become a slave to the Cult of Obama.  

Behaviour quite unbecoming a British Prime Minister.

"But in the fight for justice and the struggle for freedom, there is no end, because there is so much more to do to ensure that every human being can fulfill their potential. That is why our generation faces a new civil rights struggle, to seek the prize of the future that is open to every child as never before. Barack has made this one of the goals of his presidency, the goal he's pursuing with enormous courage."

What on earth is Cameron talking about? Gay marriage? Obama's against that, publicly at least. Healthcare reform? Or maybe it's just what it sounds - utter vacuity.

As I argued in this newspaper piece, Cameron is foolish to have ignored the Republicans during this trip. Mitt Romney, the likely GOP nominee, was in New York yesterday and today and was presumably available for a meeting. Cameron's predecessor Gordon Brown met candidates Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain in Washington in April 2008. President Obama met Cameron in London in April 2009 when the Tory was opposition leader.

He only added to this error by his fawning praise of the man he referred to earlier in the day as "Mr President Barack" - which only reinforces the sense that the UK the much junior partner in the much-vaunted (in the UK) "special relationship".

For a British prime minister to align himself with one side in American politics is a rookie error. To do it with the party on the opposite side (supposedly) of the political spectrum is pure folly.

And, of course, 41 of the 364 guests were - surprise, surprise - major Obama fundraisers. The White House drew up the guest list but if there's anyone with backbone in Downing Street (maybe a forlorn hope, I know) there will be a protest about the way Cameron was used to entertain Democratic donors being rewarded for their largesse in an election year.

Come next year, Cameron - assuming he is still in office - may very well find himself having to deal with a President Mitt Romney. If so, the first thing he'll have to do is mend some fences.

Soph:  Muffin!  Barf, barf, barf!