Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived at the White House laden with gifts, but one seemed particularly awkward. The gift of a first edition Winston Churchill biography may seem most generous, but it looks rather tricky when you consider that President Obama recently returned Churchill’s bust from whence it sat in the Oval Office. The Epstein bust was loaned to President Bush from the British government, and has recently been replaced by one of Abraham Lincoln – understandable, in these times of internal trouble.
The whole idea of the ‘special relationship’ becomes a media obsession at time such as this – one only has to look at the front page of the Daily Express. Is it a ‘special relationship’ or a ‘special partnership’, or is it ‘special’ at all? Of course, for the paid readers of such runes, the nuances of the language can be very important. But for the rest of us, frankly, it’s embarrassing – a little bit of dignity goes a long way.
Happily for the rune-watchers, the Churchill book has been given considerable prominence in the study outside the Oval Office. The bust, it is said, now resides in the home of the British ambassador in Washington, DC.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 