President Barack Obama shows Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom a bust of Sir Winston Churchill in the private residence of the White House, July 20, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER got an apology from White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer via email, then asked that it be posted publicly, which he did.
At the time, I decided to jump into the kerfuffle on this subject, because the reason Mr. Krauthammer brought up the Churchill bust in the first place was to imply some sort of anti-British, Pres. Obama’s a bad friend to our allies mumbo jumbo that continually comes from the right, which always infuriates me.
However, getting involved in hyper-partisan fights like this, besides being a waste of time, is not my beat anymore and this is a reminder of why.
I’ve made a correction to the original post, but which I offer below as well.
But make no mistake, the intent of Mr. Krauthammer was exactly as I framed it above and he is wrong in that framing, because the notion that Pres. Obama is not a good ally is right-wing propaganda at its worst. There is no other reason to use the words “Obama started his presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office,” unless you were charging Pres. Obama with an insult to an ally as the Republican candidate for president hits London.
It’s why the word “lie” was utilized in my original post to describe Mr. Krauthammer, because what he’s clearly implying is patently false.
CORRECTION APPENDED: Mr. Krauthammer was correct, Dan Pfeiffer was wrong, and I went back on the pledge I made to myself to stay out of these internecine, hyper-partisan battles and paid the price for doing so. As a recovering partisan, these battles aren’t my beat anymore. However, Mr. Krauthammer’s intent is clearly fallacious. He’s implying Pres. Obama is a disrespectful ally, which is patently untrue. And there was a contract with the British government that did indeed end with Bush’s presidency, which I explained on Twitter, that Obama honored after it expired, returning the bust because of it. But I got it wrong, because there were two busts. The bust Pres. Obama and Prime Minister Cameron are looking at above was given to Pres. Lyndon Johnson and now sits outside the Treaty Room.
I wouldn’t feel too badly about this one, Taylor. There was clearly still a statue of Churchill at the White House, and expecting Charles Krauthammer to get something wrong is a bit like expecting gravity to pull heavy objects toward the ground.
Ther are two statues in the Oval Office under President Obama (ABC News) that face each other, a bust of Abraham Lincoln and a bust of Martin Luther King. The bust of Churchill was a loaner from the British embassy given to President Bush after the 9/11 attacks to be returned at the end of the Bush Presidency. The Churchill bust was removed from the Oval Office before President Obama was inaugerated.
Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King represent American values more than Winston Churchill, except for the old confederate red states who would rather see a bust of Jefferson Davis sitting in the Oval office..
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/03/bust-of-mlk-joi/
Bottom line…he lied.
Thanks guys.
I don’t feel bad, Cujo359, and you are correct.. Absolutely, RAJenson, what’s more American than Lincoln, not to mention that Churchill liked his war served on toast.
Yep, sec, Krauthammer did lie about Obama, there is no doubt about that one.
If I’d stayed on point, which was Krauthammer’s intent and the implication of what he was saying, instead of focusing on the Churchill bust (squirrel!), then I would have been exactly on the message that pushed me to accuse Krauthammer of lying in the first place.