I sure hope this isn’t his finest hour:
A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government’s art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.
The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush’s tenure.
But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.
American politicians have made quoting Churchill, whose mother was American, something of an art form, but not Mr Obama, who prefers to cite the words and works of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Indeed a bust of Mr Lincoln now sits in the Oval Office where Epstein’s Churchill once ruled the roost.
Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill’s second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President’s grandfather.
Question: Will the Home Secretary allow this rabble-rouser’s repatriation?
Lincoln said a tremendous amount about the immorality of confiscating the labor of other people. Anyone want to bet that Obama doesn’t quite understand everything Lincoln was talking about?
President Obama is entitled to his heroes. Lincoln is a hero of mine too. I love Margaret Thatcher, but I have been in certain Irish bars where her picture was displayed on wanted posters.
Winston Churchill was an amazing person, in large part for his failures, which made him the man he was during WWII–but given the whole Kenyan business (or as the British officials used to say…Keen-ya) Barack can give the bust back if he wishes to do so, just as long as he really does channel Lincoln.
The question is, what’s the nature of the statement he wishes to send?
If you find Lincoln a hero of sorts Joe, you might want to read this post by Scott Johnson at Powerline and then particularly the imbedded links to two articles by Thomas Krannawitter here and here contrasting what Obama says he thinks about Lincoln and what Lincoln thinks about Lincoln.
Sometimes a bust is simply a bust.
–
The question is, what’s the nature of the statement he wishes to send?
I sympathize, Dan- and Winston Churchill was right about two huge threats in the 20th century – national socialism and international communism.
But Winston is a very mixed bag- denying home rule to the Irish, this Mau Mau thing, and more horrendous- fomenting famine and oppression in India (+ the divide & rule crap between India and what became Pakistan).
I can see your point, though- considering everything else Obama is signaling to us.
[…] Protein Wisdom, cruelly, “How about a bronze of Chamberlain?” […]
I went over to Thinker and saw Dan Rhiel quoted. I see Dan shares somewhat my view of Obama – though he has a more generous acceptance of O’s differences. It’s been my feeling that O is foreign-born if not in paperwork, but outlook. He doesn’t really “get” America, and I can’t quite grandfather him in like I do the Founders.
O doesn’t hold Churchill’s strength in high esteem. He’s what O has always wanted to smash down. It’s not just a bust.
What makes you assume I want my bust in President Obama’s oval office? I really don’t dislike President Obama, but that Rahm Emanuel really rubs me the wrong way. If anything, leave me out on the porch where I can at least be around the smokers.
After what happened with the Indian partition, Cyril Radcliffe’s doing, and the ultimate consequence of the Mau Mau rebellion which we are living through, you want to rephrase the objection.
Obama is a citizen of the Academy, first and foremost. His beliefs are formed from the common wisdom of the pseudo-intellectual set.. There’s little evidence that his politics are anything more than a convenient cover for self-aggrandizement and corruption.
We’re in for a bumpy ride, folks.
In one particularly narrow sense, it would be almost relieving to know that Pres. Obama actually has a strong opinion about something. It would, of course, be better were he to just come right out and state it for once, rather than leave us all to ruminate on the tea leaves of his household spring cleaning, but there we are. His choice.
Sdferr, I think we can safely state that the most fully-formed thought in Obama’s head is “ain’t I grand?”
Heh.
BFD, you people have ODS.
We’re deranged? About Pres. Obama? How, really? I just don’t see any manifestation of that at all. Certainly not in this thread.
he just has no class is the deal I think, David. Him and his woman both. Skeezey Chicago street trash. We’ll all have to do our best to make allowances I think, but they’re gonna have to try and do their part too I think for this to work.
oh. Sdferr. I hates him. I do. He’s gross and socialisty and phony and greedy and low-rent and also condescending. Also he is molesting my little country something awful with his redistributey pawings and gropings.
hf, I ran into this the other day and immediately wondered whether you would talk about the whole “branding” thing and whether Pres. Obama’s people are seriously working with a product market branding model in mind, and if so, what all that means.
I would have a bust of Simon Kenton in my Oval Office.
I’d go for Sam Kinnison, myself.
Probably why I’d never be elected.
Funny Rob, along the same vein I thought, no, that would be Stan Kenton.
oh. that the media are discussing Baracky in terms of his brand is maybe interesting. But that article how I read it isn’t about branding at all. It’s a puffy la la la piece what reinforces Baracky’s message that he is a bipartisan little socialist dipshit what the mean old Republicans are trying to thwart and frustrate. Here… This is the message…
See? Ben Smith has Boehner in the piece to deny the charge of obstructionism, which just reinforces the frame Baracky and his media want established. Baracky has always just been a branding campaign. He has no accomplishments and he’s a hyperpartisan marxist dipshit. But here, “branding” I think is just a comfortable way for Baracky’s press to discuss a dynamic by which Baracky voters are simply just so shallow and empty and stupid that Baracky’s gaymo policies aren’t really the question, it’s how his voters respond to branding stimuli that is crucial to the perceived success of his presidency.
But Ben Smith uses a bit of propagandy misdirection…
See? That’s bullshit. It’s the media what have always been responsible for safeguarding Baracky’s brand. Baracky’s aides mostly try to keep him from walking into windows and to get him to try and stay in his quiet place until Mr. Soros has something he wants his buttboy to read off the teleprompter.
“Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill’s second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President’s grandfather”
Utter shit. This is the kind of historical griefer bullshit that leads to terrorism.
I hate him. Really I do.
I am dropping this in whole:
Declaration of Honorary Citizen
of United States of America
April 9, 1963
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS Sir Winston Churchill, a son of America though a subject of Britain, has been throughout his life a firm and steadfast friend of the American people and the American nation; and
WHEREAS he has freely offered his hand and his faith in days of adversity as well as triumph; and
WHEREAS his bravery, charity and valor, both in war and in peace, have been a flame of inspiration in freedom’s darkest hour; and
WHEREAS his life has shown that no adversary can overcome, and no feat can deter, free men in the defense of their freedom; and
WHEREAS he has by his art as an historian and his judgment as a statesman made the past the servant of the future;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of the United States of America, under the authority contained in an Act of the 88th Congress, do hereby declare Sir Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States of America.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the City of Washington this ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-seventh.
JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY
——————————————————————————–
Remarks by President John F. Kennedy at
the White House, Washington D.C., April 9, 1963
We meet to honor a man whose honor requires no meeting — for he is the most honored and honorable man to walk the stage of human history in the time in which we live.
Whenever and wherever tyranny threatened, he has always championed liberty.
Facing firmly toward the future, he has never forgotten the past.
Serving six monarchs of his native Great Britain, he has served all men’s freedom and dignity.
In the dark days and darker nights when Britain stood alone — and most men save Englishmen despaired of England’s life — he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.
Given unlimited powers by his citizens, he was ever vigilant to protect their rights.
Indifferent himself to danger, he wept over the sorrows of others.
A child of the House of Commons, he became in time its father.
Accustomed to the hardships of battle, he has no distaste for pleasure.
Now his stately Ship of Life, having weathered the severest storms of a troubled century, is anchored in tranquil waters, proof that courage and faith and the zest for freedom are truly indestructible. The record of his triumphant passage will inspire free hearts for all time.
By adding his name to our rolls, we mean to honor him — but his acceptance honors us far more. For no statement or proclamation can enrich his name — the name Sir Winston Churchill is already legend.
——————————————————————————–
Sir Winston’s response
28 Hyde Park Gate, London, April 6, 1963
As read at the White House
by Randolph S. Churchill, April 9, 1963
Mr. President,
I have been informed by Mr. David Bruce that it is your intention to sign a Bill conferring upon me Honorary Citizenship of the United States.
I have received many kindnesses from the United States of America, but the honour which you now accord me is without parallel. I accept it with deep gratitude and affection.
I am also most sensible of the warm-hearted action of the individual States who accorded me the great compliment of their own honorary citizenships as a prelude to this Act of Congress.
It is a remarkable comment on our affairs that the former Prime Minister of a great sovereign state should thus be received as an honorary citizen of another. I say “great sovereign state” with design and emphasis, for I reject the view that Britain and the Commonwealth should now be relegated to a tame and minor role in the world. Our past is the key to our future, which I firmly trust and believe will be no less fertile and glorious. Let no man underrate our energies, our potentialities and our abiding power for good.
I am, as you know, half American by blood, and the story of my association with that mighty and benevolent nation goes back nearly ninety years to the day of my Father’s marriage. In this century of storm and tragedy I contemplate with high satisfaction the constant factor of the interwoven and upward progress of our peoples. Our comradeship and our brotherhood in war were unexampled. We stood together, and because of that fact the free world now stands. Nor has our partnership any exclusive nature: the Atlantic community is a dream that can well be fulfilled to the detriment of none and to the enduring benefit and honour of the great democracies.
Mr. President, your action illuminates the theme of unity of the English-speaking peoples, to which I have devoted a large part of my life. I would ask you to accept yourself, and to convey to both Houses of Congress, and through them to the American people, my solemn and heartfelt thanks for this unique distinction, which will always be proudly remembered by my descendants.
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
Obama always has been a brand. His people do recognize this, they’ve purposefully created it after all.
Brands work. Brands work to what? Sell something false? Sell something true? Or just sell something? The media participates but doesn’t direct the brand creation, they go along with its promotion and seek to uphold it, when it is in their power (and nearly theirs alone?) to undermine if not destroy it outright?
Goggling (because I don’t know jackshit about brands and branding, formally speaking) I ran into an article about Blackwater International having to change its logo (fucking logo, so deep does this shit run in us!) and name, because bad publicity has destroyed the brand they had created. They couldn’t control what the media wrote about them and had very complex and possibly, in one instance, unjustifiable stories to tell. Poof, all that previous work gone, nothing to do but abandon it and start over.
What struck me about the branding thing vis Obama was that it is openly discussed in the media and apparently by Obama’s people as well. I don’t know enough to be sure about it, but that seems to me the sort of manipulative behavior that I’d assume they would want to keep hidden, rather than blithely put it right out there for everyone to see and wonder over. But am I missing something? Was this done before with GWB, or RWR, or WJC, or GHWB? And publicly discussed? Or quietly done and not publicly discussed? Or never done and never even contemplated in some instances, as being beneath the very meaning of politics?
I will think about this on my way to work.
HI DC;
I SUGGEST A BRONZE OF CLEMENT ATTLEE:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-reveals-himself-again-return-bust.html
I’d probably feel more sympathetic to the “Mau Mau Uprising was a just cause squashed by evil Churchill” thing if Africa, as whole, weren’t a hellhole and Kenya, in particular, weren’t seething with Muslim-fed hate of whites, capitalism, and general human happiness led by the grandson of the noble Obama who was tortured by Churchill in 1960.
Not, O!, the other one. The shariah-loving Odinga.
[…] Jules Crittenden, Riehl World View, Fausta’s Blog, TigerHawk, NewsBusters.org, protein wisdom and Theo […]
In the spirit of Lincoln, Obama could use a nice bust of General McClellan that great Civil War “hero”.
Sdferr: I am not an ad-guy, but branding is something important, and companies protect their brands and logos with the ferocity of a grizzly protecting her cubs*. That was part of the Obama campaign – the Berlin speech, the Obamacropolis, the ‘seal’, etc. Brand Presidential.
The problem is if the product doesn’t live up to the hype. Then what? The product can’t be changed, and the office is the office. Increase the hype, attack competitors, or both, or something else? One month into a four year run, and this comes up on their task-lists.
*IIRC, the Obama camp is trying to protect His image from misuse. Brand protection.
Mikey, this gets precisely to the danger I fear.
Obama as New Coke?
I will enjoy reading what happyfeet has to say about this whole “branding” thing.
Sdferr:
Incrementalism works – slow and steady. Panic and heavy-handed actions work also, but have their own inherent problems that slow and steady removes. The problem I see is that the slow-and-steady stuff the Obama administration’s people saw was in an environment where there was just one ‘party’ and one strongman.
Washington, even with one party, is riven with factions. There isn’t just one ‘strongman’ and I do not see either Pelosi, Reid, or Obama as ‘strongmen’.
I am not a prophet, but I have read some history, and I expect there will come a time when factions will be at loggerheads that cannot be papered over with a bunch of Benjamins. Then will come the fun.
N.B – as a fun exercise – imagine if Adolph Hitler had succumbed to a massive heart attack in March 1941. In 1945 the various factions were willing to pass off the problem to Doenitz, but in early 1941? The scrum of various competing factions would have been interesting to watch.
Yes, these are going to be dangerous years.
Branding is mostly about repetition and association, but it’s the latter part what is key for Baracky and the former that his key for his media. Baracky is Jell-O. It’s very difficult to sell something what has no nutritional value. So what the Jell-O people sell is “I am a good mom.” Baracky’s branding is all about getting halfwits to say “I am a good person and it doesn’t matter if I’m remarkably shallow or that I’m bequeathing a life of socialist degradation to my children, I am a good person. I am I am I am.”
The magazine industry Baracky “phenomenon” what is still going on… it’s not about collectibles or commemoratives or whatever (and it’s only a phenomenon cause print is on life-support). It’s not about people wanting to read page after vapid page about our dipshit president. It’s about meeting the appetites of shallow people with low self-images what want to carry around or have about their house or their office something that says something about who they think they are. Baracky’s brand stopped being that fag-ass Hope or Change shit long ago. Baracky’s brand is simply Winner now I think.
Winners have to behave a certain way though, and Baracky is a petulant no-account what is already tired of being George Soros’s bitch 24/7 and it shows, not to mention his trainwreck of a transition. That’s what’ll keep his media busy more than anything I think. They’re in charge of repetition. This is why polls polls polls, cause that’s the easiest way say hey. Baracky is a driver, he’s a winner. Things are gonna change can’t you feel it? It’s the manufactured counterpoint to any criticism. And that’s where we are I think. It’s very sad. If this made any sense go glance over the politico article Sdferr linked. Think about this especially…
Pollsters almost universally agreed with Emanuel. Just turn that around and look at it from a few angles and see what you think. It’s very very sad.
oh. easiest way *to* say that should be
Actually, the bust was overheard to be saying, “Get me out of here.” It was kind of spooky. Obama is obliging, so get off his back.
#38 haps:
That was good and got me thinking a little bit. Although the ‘dream machine’ wasn’t quite as big as it is today, JFK had the branding thing down pat. Over forty years later he is still the mark for style and panache, and I can’t see BHO beating that. The Obama campaign has tried to grab onto the JFK mark, they don’t seem to quite make it – even though both have a very favorable press and a very dominant political party.
Which is why it was quite surprising to see “The Cleaner” — a bald headed, heavily muscled guy with an earring — make an appearance in “The Venture Bros.”
Also, from what I understand, each of the Keebler elves has a complete biography. When people work on material related to them, they’re expected to keep the biographical details in mind.
“The Venture Brothers” have done a lot of spoofing. I am not sure, but they may have gone with product placement for the ‘non-Geritol Generation’.
I mean – see ‘Harvey Birdman’ for what they have done with Peter Potamous. And if IIRC – Cartoon Network is an H-B thing.
“A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history”
If he’s got a bust, maybe it’s not too late for a “bro”.
Thanks for your efforts happyfeet. The whole thing makes me kinda sick at the stomach, really. Most of all the lame celebration of the stupid.
I don’t think it’s too soon to start keeping a diary, really. People will want to know what it was like later. And make tv movies and stuff.
“I don’t think he’s lost anything in terms of overall job approval or favorability,†said Andy Smith
Andy isn’t overly bright, is he?
Barky’s numbers aren’t going anywhere but down.
Oh, they’ll bounce up a percentage point or two here and there, leading to many whoops of joy from nipply, but the trend since the inauguration is clear.
Rasmussen’s “approval index” (strongly approve – strongly disapprove): 11 (down from 30)
Strongly approve: 37% (down from 44%)
Strongly disapprove: 26% (up from 16%)
Total approve: 60% (down from 65%)
Total disapprove: 39% (up from 30%)
What was the popular vote again? 52-46, wasn’t it? That looks like only a 6% margin to me.