Yesterday's Guardian suggested Barack Obama was trying to douse the flames he himself had set burning with Great Britain.(Remember when journalists thought this guy was going to make a terrific diplomat?)
President Barack Obama moved to defuse a growing political row over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill yesterday by assuring the prime minister that he was not trying to blame Britain for the catastrophe.
In a 30-minute phone call, the US president took the extraordinary step of insisting he had not been trying to undermine the value of BP when criticising the company...
Really? It sure seemed like Obama was blaming Britain. And BP. And George Bush. And oil companies in general. And even his latest bugaboo, Congress -- because they wouldn't have done anything even if he had proposed more stringent controls.
Huh? Blaming someone for not giving you what you never asked them for? This guy's a peach.
And that's not even mentioning the gall he has to now claim that he (and others in his administration) haven't been trying to "undermine the value of BP" after the strident, self-righteous slamming of the company that has been the chief product of the White House for the last ten days!
The fact, which should be very well known to the President of the United States (had he done a little reading and a little less partying), is that BP dropped the name "British Petroleum" more than a decade ago. In fact, as Dr. Greg Gardner told me in an e-mail this past weekend, BP is very much a international company. In fact, more of its shareholders are from the U.S. than any other country -- a full 49%.
And the oil rig that blew up was not a BP construction.
Greg continued, "Obama is wrong to go after BP. BP pays the U.S. government billions every year for its licences. You would have thought that the U.S. government would have set some of that aside for such contingencies as a serious oil spill."
Well said.
By the way, besides Obama's playing the "blame game" on BP, he has found yet another way to foolishly offend the British. And in this case, there has yet to come an apologetic phone call to Downing Street.
Here's the beef as put by Alex Singleton in the Telegraph,
The special relationship is over. We gave America years of unwavering support after September 11. And now we see how Barack Obama’s administration repays us.
First, Obama declared that America was “neutral” over the sovereignty of the Falklands, ignoring the clear wishes of the islands’ population. And, second, his Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Crowley, snubbed Britain by failing to use their proper name and instead calling them the “Malvinas”.
I don’t know where Obama learned about diplomacy, but his stinks. I’m normally pro-American, but Mr Obama’s seeming support for Argentinian aggressors, who have no legitimate claim over the Falklands, is gratuitously offensive. So from today, I’m boycotting America as a tourist destination. This summer, I’ll be going to France, not California.
Let me be clear: I’m not normally in favour of boycotts, and I love the American people. I holiday in their country regularly, and hate the tedious snobby sneers against the United States. But the American people chose to elect an idiot who seems hell bent on insulting their allies, and something must be done to stop Obama’s reckless foreign policy, before he does the dirty on his allies on every issue.
If our American friends want to stop Obama shredding the respect the rest of the planet has towards America, they need to stop Obama’s destructive policies – and fast.
