PRESIDENT OBAMA, YOU´VE BEEN "BUSTED"………LITERALLY

After the health care bill passed, the conservatives are now digging up anything they can find, no matter how dumb, in going after the president.

...A bronze "bust" of Sir Winston Churchill

I always love it when the conservative pundits try to twist a normal situation into some kind of sinister plot. That happened this week when the conservative columnist and Fox "Noise" Contributor, Charles Krauthammer, accused President Obama of insulting the British Government by returning a bust of Sir Winston Churchill to the British Embassy in Washington DC.

Mr. Krauthammer went on to throw more dirt at the president saying that this is how the President is treating all of America´s allies. He then manufactured some bizarre concepts of what is going on at the White House (as if a conservative and a major Fox contributor like him would be high on the list for knowing what the White House is up to...) and of course most of what Krauthammer says is that the president is "slapping the faces of America´s international allies".

As we all are aware, with the exception of Great Britain, George W. Bush was anything but friendly with our real allies around the globe. In fact, he was probably dispised more by our allies than any US president in decades. That became very obvious to all of us when Senator Obama made his trips abroad just before the 2008 presidential election. I can still recall when those attending his speeches by the tens of thousands were saying, "Finally, a potential US president that it appears we can trust what he says."

But, did this new president actually return the bust of Sir Winston?

Yes he did. Krauthammer says that instead of returning it and offending the British people, Obama should have at least found another place for it somewhere else in the White House.

Mr. Krauthammer, would you please do your homework before you open your conservative mouth?

To start with, the bust was not a present given to the president or even to the American people. It was a bust that was on loan from the former British prime minister Tony Blair to President Bush following the September 11th attacks. This bust of Sir Winston Churchill had previously occupied a cherished spot in President George W. Bush's Oval Office. Today, a bust of Abraham Lincoln, ( by the way, who happened to be a Republican) and Obama's historical hero, now sits in its place.

So, are the British diplomats or the British people upset about the return of Churchill´s bust?

Apparently not, as even the Churchill expert, Steven Hayward of the conservative think-tank, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) believes that the average Briton will be unfazed by the bust's return. He also stated that the folks across the pond have always been puzzled by America´s extreme fondness for Churchill.

In his later years, Sir Winston was admired by Americans much more than by the average British citizen. As it was, the British citizenry had become very "war-weary" of Churchill after their many years of war with Germany. This was shown to be the situation when the British Labour Party won the elections by a landslide in 1945, over the Churchill conservatives.

On the other hand, one must remember that it was Churchill who ordered a crackdown on the Mau Mau Rebellion which was against the then British colonial rule in Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland. In fact, Obama's grandfather, Onyango Obama, was labeled a subversive by the British during the uprising and he then spent months in a cruel detention facility.

So based on Obama´s long-time respect for Abraham Lincoln and his family´s past negative experience with the British, and Sir Winston in particular, no one can personally blame him if it had anything to do with returning the bust.

But in reality, it must be understood that most of this latest "kerfuffle" is just a bunch of "to-do" about nothing.

A long-time White House assistant has stated that the Churchill bust was returned well before Obama's inauguration as part of the usual changeover of operations. He also added that every president usually puts their own stamp on their initial move into the Oval Office.

So Mr. Krauthammer, go ahead and look for those ghosts and skeletons in the closet and continue to find these miniscule issues to criticize a new president that this time can speak intelligently. He can also pronounce the word "nuclear" and is doing his best to deal with the incompetent mess that he was handed on day one.

Let's not forget that this new president was handed two wars, a trillion dollar deficit, the worst economy in 80 years and a country that has lost major numbers of American jobs for 3 years straight. (Not to mention the thousands of jobs that have gone overseas over the past 30 years.) It´s all very different from the deal that was handed-off to Obama's predecessor.

Given the circumstances, I´ll give this president a bit more time before I go after him and criticize his performance on the job. I would suggest that you do the same.

However, I´m fairly sure that suggestion will just fall on "deaf and dumb" ears.

Copyright G.Ater 2010

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