British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Obama. APLondon and Washington at Loggerheads -- Wall Street Journal
How Gordon Brown has alienated Barack Obama.
It says something about the parlous state of relations between Washington and London that a Democratic American president can use words like "lackluster," "depressing" and "dour" to describe a prime minister from the British Labour party.
According to "Renegade," a new biography of President Barack Obama by British journalist Richard Wolffe, these were the words the president used to describe his first impressions of Prime Minister Gordon Brown after they met in July last year. Now, following the scandal surrounding the Brown government's involvement in the decision to repatriate the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, one suspects another word is being used at the White House to sum up Mr. Obama's view of his British counterpart: duplicitous.
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My Comment: This relationship has always been a two way street. It started unraveling when the two leaders met for the first time in the Oval Office. As is customary there was an exchange of gifts .... PM Brown took the time and effort to bring over an expensive and unique gift .... President Obama gave him a collection of DVDs.
It started to go down hill after that.
When a number of Guantanamo detainees were then dumped onto Bermuda without notifying Britain (Bermuda's foreign affairs falls under British responsibility) .... the unraveling continued.
Libya, release of the Lockerbie bomber, failure in Afghanistan, economic/financial crisis .... added up .... with a poor personal relationship .... we are where we are today.
If the Consevatives under Cameron assume power next year .... as it is predicted .... I do not see major changes on the horizon. Cameron is hostile to President Obama's economic and government philosophy .... and will probably reset Britian to focus on economic issues, not on issues that preoccupy President Obama.
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