Barack Obama

Gemma Worrell
Poor Ms Worrall. She is the fragrant 20 year old from Blackpool who has become famous for her tweet -

In her defence it should be said that Obama became the 44th President of America in 2009 when Worrall was 15 years old. As for the comment 'our president', well the BBC has, all those years, treated Obama as if he is the Messiah so perhaps her mistake is understandable. Which leads us on to the flatulent Nick Clegg. He is older than Worrall but politically just as ignorant. And try as he did with his speech at the LibDem conference the possibility is the Worrall Tweet will be read by more people than attendees at his conference. This despite the BBC trying to present his words as important.

The Spectator reported on the Worrall story and it got over 170 comments from readers. By contrast the reports about Clegg scored 36, 234, and 6. Now you would have thought the politician would have fared better than that. And there was a less than favourable reaction to Clegg from the Guardian too.

Tears of joy Mr President?
We start with Barack Obama. Kicking the can down the road and the fiscal cliff. It all sounds so dramatic don't you think? Perhaps we have to forgive those who ramp these things up. For dithering and living beyond your means sounds so boring, not the sort of thing you would expect from the USA and their President. Funny how it goes but when Spain began its descent into financial chaos it was Barack Obama who in 2010 rang up Prime Minister Zapatero to offer words of advice and encouragement. Rumour has it Obama handed out a bit of a ticking off too.

Time moves on and Don José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero lost the 2011 Spanish elections but Obama secured a second term as the President of the USA. We don't know if Zapatero or any other leader rang him to reciprocate with words of advice but I think we can imagine the reaction had they done so. For Obama is so typical of his nation at its worst, they like dishing it out but not getting it back. As time moves on Obama is looking ever more Hollywood than White House. Ronald Reagan was a better and more convincing actor too!

The arrogance of Obama was at first a shock but now seems commonplace. Taking people for granted is what he does. Also they say that history will be a harsh judge of Zapatero.

Independence is best
Two things here: the behaviour of Turkey concerning the 'peace flotilla' and the US President's rhetoric following the oil spill. In the latter case the 'special relationship' between the US and the UK has come under the spotlight and this should be welcomed. In the former it's a bit more complicated. Turkey is seeking a relationship, it wants to join the EU. In both cases the UK should be both analytical and careful.

During WW2 there was no such thing as the political spinner, even so political presentation was important hence the arrival of the term 'special relationship' (SR), generally considered to have been first used by Winston Churchill to describe the close ties between himself and the US administration. It may have suited Churchill to think this way but ever since historians have cast doubt upon the real value to, and consequences flowing from, US policy both during and following WW2. Those times are now so far away it's fanciful to imagine the phrase has any of the original meaning left. So, unless it has acquired a modern meaningful translation, agreed by both the US and the UK, it's misleading.

Man with stick?
It's heart-sink time. I've just heard BBC radio broadcast the idea the Barack Obama (see right) will "hit the ground running". This is awful as it takes one back to the start of Nulabour when Tony Blair began gurning at the nation and also dropped the remark that his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, would to start us off in the right direction by doing this very same thing. The term 'hit the ground running' may indeed be American and comes, so I'm told, from the world of cartoon characters. When I first heard this saying I struggled to understand it, seeing in my mind only a man running along and holding a stick, periodically beating the ground.

"What's the point of that", I thought, unlike Tony Blair, I could not see the merit in it. I imagine Tony delivering this news, eyes almost the size of dinner plates, staring dreamily into the middle distance, his whole body stiffened by a mixture of conviction and zeal, as if to say: "follow me, I'm the anointed one". Well we all know that went pear shaped; Tony took off to do better things, like making lots of money and left Gordon to save the world on his own. But alas Gordon now looks bruised, battered and crumpled like a man who has fallen over his stick one too many times while running, the dream destroyed. I wish Obama well, I say take care and don't rush about, mind that stick.