Obama and Commentators Speak. Please, Make It Stop

Nothing but Nonsense and Headaches, Contentions, May 26, 2011. "President Obama’s address to Parliament in Westminster Hall yesterday was of a piece with all his other major public statements. In fact, it was all of his other major public statements. Except for the boilerplate on Britain, it was the same speech he has been giving since his inauguration: unobjectionable generalities coupled with sketchy history, a rejection of false choices, and an assertion that everything he wants to achieve is modest, reasonable, and entirely in tune with the generalities, and thus barely counts as a choice at all. Will he ever get bored with false reasonableness?"

On Failing to Rise to the Occasion

Obama’s UK Speech: Rhetoric Cannot Substitute for Achievement, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 25, 2011. "President Obama’s address to Britain’s Parliament in historic Westminster Hall was of a piece with many of his speeches: a mixture of soaring generalities and devils in the details, with some dubious history thrown in."

Question Time for Obama

What We’d Gain If Obama Had to Perform During Question Time in the House of Commons?, Fox News, May 25, 2011. "President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron spent part of yesterday playing ping pong, a sport that was invented in Britain. Cameron would have done better to introduce Obama to another of Britain’s distinctive institutions: question time in the House of Commons."

Less Special, More Relations, Please

U.S. Relations Must be Rooted in Reality Rather Than Rhetoric, Yorkshire Post, May 23, 2011. "It is not particularly depressing that there is little personal sympathy evident between Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama. Undoubtedly, the pomp and circumstance for which official Britain is famous will be deployed to effect, but the very fact that Obama is making a state visit testifies to the fact that, for Cameron, its significance rests mostly in its visible symbolism."

Will Ireland Go Bankrupt?

President Obama Visits the Irish Financial Crisis, with J.D. Foster, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3266, May 20, 2011. "When President Obama visits Ireland on May 23–24, he is expected to visit Moneygall, in County Offaly, the ancestral home of his mother’s family. While finding Irish ancestors is a favorite electoral sport of American leaders, the President would be better advised to spend his time studying the Irish financial crisis, which has important lessons for America. If this crisis continues to deepen, the U.S. may be compelled to consider the implications of an Irish default. If default becomes inevitable, then the U.S. should not simply take the side of European institutions if doing so would uselessly prolong the crisis."

Britain's Defense and Obama's State Visit

What President Obama Should Tell Prime Minister Cameron About Britain’s Defense Cuts, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3265, May 20, 2011. "During his state visit to the United Kingdom on May 24–26, President Barack Obama should speak clearly to Prime Minister David Cameron about the serious damage that the latest round of British defense cuts is doing to Britain’s armed forces. The Special Relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain rests in part on the desire of each nation to play a leading role in the world. Without capable armed forces, Britain cannot play this role. Thus, Britain’s defense cuts are bad not only for its forces but for the Anglo–American alliance."

Action Items for Obama's State Visit to Britain

What President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron Should Do to Preserve the Anglo-American Special Relationship, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3264, May 20, 2011. "During his state visit to the United Kingdom on May 24–26, President Barack Obama should reaffirm the vital importance of the Special Relationship. This affirmation should go beyond words and address the tensions in the Anglo–American alliance that have built up during the President’s first two years in office."

Again with the Marshall Plan Analogy

Back to the Future, Again: A Mini-Marshall Plan for Egypt?, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 19, 2011. "Absolutely none of the conditions that conduced to the success of the Marshall Plan are present in Egypt, which is a poorly-governed, corrupt, ill-educated country with a backwards economy and a political system that is trending strongly towards an alliance of military authoritarians and radical Salafis. The Marshall Plan does indeed show that, given good domestic governance, certain kinds of U.S. assistance can work. But the Marshall Plan was not a hand-out: it was conditioned in many ways, it was predicated on a shared acceptance of democracy and economic freedom, and it rested on the competent administration of Europeans."

The Special Relationship: What Must Be Done

Preserving the Special Relationship: A Conservative Agenda for President Obama’s State Visit to Great Britain, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2258, May 19, 2011. "The summit meeting in May between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron comes at an important moment in the Special Relationship between the United States and Great Britain. The two powers lead NATO, which has again proved that it is the only European and Atlantic institution capable of creating consensus and responding in a crisis. However, the political tensions and military failings exposed by the Libyan intervention reflect broader weaknesses in the Anglo–American alliance and in NATO as a whole. The President and the Prime Minister need to address these weaknesses forthrightly and not allow rhetoric about the Special Relationship to substitute for serious action to preserve it now and strengthen it for the future."

Lessons from a Forgotten Churchill Speech

Why Churchill’s Lessons on War and Peace Still Ring True Today, Fox News, May 13, 2011. "One of Churchill’s greatest speeches during this struggle came in 1934. His subject was simple: “The Causes of War.” In this broadcast, he dismissed the idea that the way to prevent war was to focus on teaching Britons to hate violence, for the threat to peace did not stem from Britain. It stemmed from “a nation which with all its strength and virtues is in the grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law.” It stemmed from the nature of the Nazi regime. Americans would do well to remember, when we wonder at the actions of foreign regimes, that they behave as they do not because of our failures, but because of their own."

After Bin Laden, Now What?

Obama Has Shown His Leadership, But Now We Must See His Common Sense, Yorkshire Post, May 12, 2011. "After his election in 2008, President Barack Obama was occasionally lauded as the Reagan of the left, an orator of genius who would reshape the landscape of American politics for a generation. Two years later, the landscape was indeed reshaped – by the conservative landslide of 2010. The very scale of that loss evoked enough pity to give Obama a brief post-election bounce. The wonderful success of the strike against Osama Bin Laden has given him another one. But will it endure?"

Results of the AV Referendum

British Vote May Doom the Liberal Democrats, Contentions, May 9, 2011. "The irony of the AV referendum is that the Lib Dems thought it would make them into Britain’s third party. Instead, it may end up destroying them, and in the process return Britain to a two-party system, which is ideally suited to the first past the post system for which the British people have shown such enthusiastic support."

Looking Ahead to the AV Referendum

Britain Votes on the Vote, Contentions, May 3, 2011. "In a party political sense, AV runs the risk of making the Liberal Democrats the permanent king-makers in British politics. More importantly, though, it risks cementing the dominance of establishment convictions: it is not so much a particular party that will benefit as a particular approach to politics."