President Obama’s endorsement of Britain staying in the EU has thrown London’s mayor into something of a tizzy, causing him to channel his inner Newt Gingrich.
The mayor of London blasted President Barack Obama’s opposition to the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, suggesting in an op-ed that Obama’s background and values are at odds with the British people.
Boris Johnson, a Conservative who has been mayor of London since 2008, attacked Obama in a piece for The Sun published Friday for supporting the British government’s position against a so-called Brexit. Johnson recalled an oft-repeated (and debunked) story about Obama returning the bust of Winston Churchill to the British embassy in Washington upon taking office.
“No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire — of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” Johnson wrote. “Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was. Perhaps his ideas were old-fashioned and out of date.”
Cameron to Obama: “Yep. That’s Churchill all right.”I suppose some people still consider it an unforgivable insult that Obama moved the Churchill bust from the Oval Office (where his predecessor George W. Bush kept it) to another prominent location in the White House and replaced it with a bust of (shudder) Abraham Lincoln.
You may recall conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza’s assertion— endorsed by Republican former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich– that Obama is motivated above all by his “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview.
So according to Johnson, Obama’s rage against the British Empire is so all-consuming that he has endorsed a position advocated by, um, Britain’s Conservative prime minister?
Wow. I guess ODS* can strike anywhere at any time.
*Obama Derangement Syndrome