Well this is a little embarrassing, Prime Minister Cameron is being called out for obsequiousness by the home team.
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 goes downhill from there.
Ouch! That’s going to leave a mark. (See for yourself, if you must)
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.
Not only that, butt now that “inside the tent” pictures from our unofficial state dinner are leaking out, critics are beginning to wonder if we got our money’s worth from that expensive party planner that the Clinton’s used for Chelsea’s wedding.
It does look like any run-of-the-mill charity ball,
Nice Lucite backed chairs; what was that quaint Brit expression again? Oh yes, “cheesy”
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 (is) 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.
Like I noted yesterday, they sure don’t make Tories like they used to. Butt I’m sure glad Big Guy is beyond making rookie mistakes like that.
Do we always sit with our back to guests now?
Meanwhile, back on the domestic front: Big Guy went to Prince George Community College yesterday to remind us again that there’s no silver bullet for high gas prices, and to call the “Drill, Drill, Drill” people stupid:
Big Guy, being derisive, even dismissive of the “drill here, drill now” flat-earthers
We’ve heard this kind of thinking before. Let me tell you something. If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail -- (laughter) -- they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society. (Laughter.) They would not have believed that the world was round. (Applause.) [ed., because you’re probably stupid and don’t know what the Flat Earth Society believed.] We've heard these folks in the past. They probably would have agreed with one of the pioneers of the radio who said, "Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan." (Laughter.) One of Henry Ford’s advisors was quoted as saying, "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a fad." (Laughter.) [ed., laugh lines provided courtesy of an in-kind campaign contribution from Chris Rock]
Now, Maryland, there are two problems with that answer. First of all, we are drilling. Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. (Applause.) Any time. That's a fact. That's a fact. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs to a record high. I want everybody to listen to that -- we have more oil rigs operating now than ever. That's a fact.
Butt Charles the K calls him out on that point:
These increases have occurred in spite of his restrictive policies. They are the result of Clinton- and Bush-era permitting. This has been accompanied by a gold rush of natural gas production resulting from new fracking technology that has nothing at all to do with Obama.
And it appears that Big Guy is actually a bit conflicted over whether we’re stupid or not:
“The American people aren’t stupid,” Obama said (Feb. 23), mocking “Drill, baby, drill.” The “only solution,” he averred in yet another major energy speech last week, is that “we start using less — that lowers the demand, prices come down.” Yet five paragraphs later he claimed that regardless of “how much oil we produce at home . . . that’s not going to set the price of gas worldwide.”
And than Charles makes Big Guy cry, by calling him out on his crony-capitalism green energy policy:
Instead, Obama offers what he fancies to be the fuels of the future. You would think that he’d be a tad more modest today about his powers of divination after the Solyndra bankruptcy, the collapse of government-subsidized Ener1 (past makers of the batteries of the future) and GM’s suspension of production — for lack of demand — of another federally dictated confection, the flammable Chevy Volt.
Deterred? Hardly. Our undaunted seer of the energy future has come up with his own miracle fuel: algae.
See? Just like Big Guy said: Charles has revealed himself to be a complete luddite. He’s probably a Global Warming denier too.
Well, I’ve got to run, I’ve still got a lot to do in advance of our big St. Patrick’s Day (if we’re still allowed to call it that) O’Bama party.
I leave you to contemplate Big Guy’s energy plan of the future:
With a little luck ‘o the Irish, my green energy plan will work like a lucky charm…to give me another 4 years. WTF.
Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and by Car in & roamingfirehydrant on The Hostages, Thanks!