Obama doesn't 'get' the UK because he's not white - Romney adviser

[Senator Sbane]

I think we should just let the UK vote on who is going to be the next president. What do you think Republicans?

I strongly approve of Obama's decision to remove Churchills bust from the white house. That guy was an ardent racist and colonialist way behind the times. I am always wary of anyone who likes Churchill that much. Especially when it's done "symbolically" as the Romney campaign wants to do. What are they symbolizing? That they are fine with colonialism around the world?

Churchill saved Britain from a horrible fate in WWII. That alone makes him a great man in my mind.

Right, and he was a good leader admittedly. But Obama didn't take out his bust for that reason. Churchill also held horrible views which cannot be explained away by the context of the times. Of course I dont know if that is why the bust was removed either. In any case, the bust is not necessary to have a good relation with Britain. As for any slight towards the British, wasn't it mostly towards Brown? Cameron and Obama seem to get along quite well and the British people still love Obama. The only ones complaining are some Republicans, for god knows what motivation......

[Senator Sbane]

I strongly approve of Obama's decision to remove Churchills bust from the white house. That guy was an ardent racist and colonialist way behind the times. I am always wary of anyone who likes Churchill that much. Especially when it's done "symbolically" as the Romney campaign wants to do. What are they symbolizing? That they are fine with colonialism around the world?

Churchill was pretty brutal towards Ireland but I can still recognise he saved Britain.

Yup horrible guy, excellent leader. No reason to celebrate him though. If the British want to, they can.

[Torie]

I think we should just let the UK vote on who is going to be the next president. What do you think Republicans?

I strongly approve of Obama's decision to remove Churchills bust from the white house. That guy was an ardent racist and colonialist way behind the times. I am always wary of anyone who likes Churchill that much. Especially when it's done "symbolically" as the Romney campaign wants to do. What are they symbolizing? That they are fine with colonialism around the world?

Churchill saved Britain from a horrible fate in WWII. That alone makes him a great man in my mind.

Right, and he was a good leader admittedly. But Obama didn't take out his bust for that reason. Churchill also held horrible views which cannot be explained away by the context of the times. Of course I dont know if that is why the bust was removed either. In any case, the bust is not necessary to have a good relation with Britain. As for any slight towards the British, wasn't it mostly towards Brown? Cameron and Obama seem to get along quite well and the British people still love Obama. The only ones complaining are some Republicans, for god knows what motivation......

And I agree that Churchill had a "romantic" view about colonialism, to be it charitably, so we are getting along just fine.

[shua]

"Anglo Saxon" cuts the Normans (almost all of our legal words are from the French for a reason) and the Celts out of the action.

The headline is quite tendentious and false and misleading of course. Mittens' unnamed "advisors" although getting it wrong technically, were referring to culture of course, not race. Sad.

Normans don't fit the mythos of the American self-image.

[afleitch]

Given that there are more blacks in the UK than Mormons it's a rather odd statement for an advisor to make.

[milhouse24]

Obama obviously thinks he's a French socialist instead of a British citizen!

It sounds like a hit piece by some liberal reporter.  Many brits are very anti-religion and hate mormons and conservative christians.  Frankly, I'm surprised that Romney is visiting Europe at all.  He doesn't work for the Olympic comittee anymore, and he should spend time traveling the real united states and not our past overlords. 

[WhyteRain]

Obama obviously thinks he's a French socialist instead of a British citizen!

It sounds like a hit piece by some liberal reporter.  Many brits are very anti-religion and hate mormons and conservative christians.  Frankly, I'm surprised that Romney is visiting Europe at all.  He doesn't work for the Olympic comittee anymore, and he should spend time traveling the real united states and not our past overlords. 

In the GOP primaries, no one was closer to Obama than Romney -- the unapologetic architect of the prototype for ObamaCare.  Almost nothing will change if Romney wins.

GHW Bush:  Yale
Clinton:  Yale
GW Bush:  Yale and Harvard
Obama:  Harvard
Romney:  Harvard

[Torie]

Obama obviously thinks he's a French socialist instead of a British citizen!

It sounds like a hit piece by some liberal reporter.  Many brits are very anti-religion and hate mormons and conservative christians.  Frankly, I'm surprised that Romney is visiting Europe at all.  He doesn't work for the Olympic comittee anymore, and he should spend time traveling the real united states and not our past overlords. 

In the GOP primaries, no one was closer to Obama than Romney -- the unapologetic architect of the prototype for ObamaCare.  Almost nothing will change if Romney wins.

GHW Bush:  Yale
Clinton:  Yale
GW Bush:  Yale and Harvard
Obama:  Harvard
Romney:  Harvard

Did you get rejected when you applied to Harvard and Yale?  You seem to have a beef against those two institutions in particular. It seems a tad odd as a fixation, as if attendance there affixes a scarlet letter to one's chest.

[Sibboleth]

This is an incredibly, incredibly, incredibly stupid thread. I cannot emphasis this enough. Stupid. Stupidly, stupidly, stupidly stupid. Skin-crawlingly, embarrassingly, painfully stupid. Ghastly, horrific and unutterably stupid. Awful.

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

Is there any "ignore" button on Romney campaign I can possibly use?

[Torie]

The newest sign that America is doomed:

I could think it being controversial to a good many Normans and Celts who aren't of Anglo-Saxon background.

The Vikings are being short changed too. They spread their seed all up and down the rivers in Northern England, which is why for a few centuries until folks moved around a bit more, the river folk were lighter skinned in general than the upland ones, where it was too much of a hike to impregnate the local populace by the randy Viking teenagers on their sojourns having a grand old time raping and pillaging and having the ultimate "spring break" of their life. The Yorkie dialect up there has a fair number of Viking words in it to boot.

[Supersonic]

I hope President Romney restores the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, a toast to our respective nations strong historical and diplomatic ties.

[WhyteRain]

Obama obviously thinks he's a French socialist instead of a British citizen!

It sounds like a hit piece by some liberal reporter.  Many brits are very anti-religion and hate mormons and conservative christians.  Frankly, I'm surprised that Romney is visiting Europe at all.  He doesn't work for the Olympic comittee anymore, and he should spend time traveling the real united states and not our past overlords. 

In the GOP primaries, no one was closer to Obama than Romney -- the unapologetic architect of the prototype for ObamaCare.  Almost nothing will change if Romney wins.

GHW Bush:  Yale
Clinton:  Yale
GW Bush:  Yale and Harvard
Obama:  Harvard
Romney:  Harvard

Did you get rejected when you applied to Harvard and Yale?  You seem to have a beef against those two institutions in particular. It seems a tad odd as a fixation, as if attendance there affixes a scarlet letter to one's chest.

LOL -- god no, I could never afford one of those schools.  No one but I paid a dime for any of my college or college-years expenses.  I used to the G.I. Bill to attend Big (and Cheap) State University and Law School.

But I'm experienced with the "clubbish" nature inherent in elite institutions, and that's what I'm getting at by pointing out that these five guys are all from the same "club".

Btw, one of my best friends in college went to Yale Law and my nephew just graduated from Harvard Law.  It seems like I heard recently that one of my other nephews or nieces may also be Harvard-bound, but I can't recall for sure.  Oh, and my middle daughter says she's going to apply to Princeton when she finishes high school.

[Torie]

This is an incredibly, incredibly, incredibly stupid thread. I cannot emphasis this enough. Stupid. Stupidly, stupidly, stupidly stupid. Skin-crawlingly, embarrassingly, painfully stupid. Ghastly, horrific and unutterably stupid. Awful.

Your opinion is not totally different from mine, but is it not in your DNA to get a tad more specific about these things?  You seem to have assumed the role of Zeus hurling thunderbolts down from Mt. Olympus onto the rather pathetic creatures below, as if the thunderbolts speak for themselves, res ipsa loquitur.

[WhyteRain]

I hope President Romney restores the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, a toast to our respective nations strong historical and diplomatic ties.

At this point in history, I would think a bust of Margaret Thatcher would be more appropriate.  She was the last PM with real balls.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

The idea that America's "Anglo-Saxon" culture(itself a dubious assertion, unless you're referring to the language... doesn't America have more people of German ancestry then English ancestry?) should be of particular import in it's foreign policy is amusing to me.

As for the "special relationship"- how much does it really matter? From realpolitik perspective the UK's importance is limited to their veto capacity in the EU and UN(the latter which is shared by America) and US access to the UK's overseas island naval bases. Their's nothing their that they can't get from other countries. America's real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia.

[patrick1]

The newest sign that America is doomed:

I could think it being controversial to a good many Normans and Celts who aren't of Anglo-Saxon background.

The Vikings are being short changed too. They spread their seed all up and down the rivers in Northern England, which is why for a few centuries until folks moved around a bit more, the river folk were lighter skinned in general than the upland ones, where it was too much of a hike to impregnate the local populace by the randy Viking teenagers on their sojourns having a grand old time raping and pillaging and having the ultimate "spring break" of their life. The Yorkie dialect up there has a fair number of Viking words in it to boot.

From a DNA standpoint, the genetic contribution of the Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Vikings is vastly overstated.  That goes for the Celtic legacy as well. While there are regional variations, the majority of people in England and Ireland are descended from the original inhabitants of the isles.

[patrick1]

As for the "special relationship"- how much does it really matter? From realpolitik perspective the UK's importance is limited to their veto capacity in the EU and UN(the latter which is shared by America) and US access to the UK's overseas island naval bases. Their's nothing their that they can't get from other countries. America's real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia.

No. The UK has been the US' most steadfast ally. 

Saudi Arabia is just unreliable (70's oil crisis/hotbed of terrorism) and you are overstating its particular importance as a source of US oil.  It varies but we only get around 10-20% of our imported crude from Saudi Arabia. We get 2x as much from Canada.  Of course, a stable Saudi is good for America and the global economy so it helps to have good relations in place.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

When he was born, his father was a British subject, and he has a half-sister who I believe still lives in the UK. But obviously the adviser doesn't care about that, it's the skin color that matters.

[oakvale]

[patrick1]

This is an incredibly, incredibly, incredibly stupid thread. I cannot emphasis this enough. Stupid. Stupidly, stupidly, stupidly stupid. Skin-crawlingly, embarrassingly, painfully stupid. Ghastly, horrific and unutterably stupid. Awful.

Haha, I actually do like it sometimes to see threads just devolve completely into chaos.  Where else can you talk about the division of labor in Ludwig the Mad's castle, the respective merits of Harvard or Yale and the genetic history of Britain, than on the Atlas?

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

As for the "special relationship"- how much does it really matter? From realpolitik perspective the UK's importance is limited to their veto capacity in the EU and UN(the latter which is shared by America) and US access to the UK's overseas island naval bases. Their's nothing their that they can't get from other countries. America's real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia.

No. The UK has been the US' most steadfast ally.  

Saudi Arabia is just unreliable (70's oil crisis/hotbed of terrorism) and you are overstating its particular importance as a source of US oil.  It varies but we only get around 10-20% of our imported crude from Saudi Arabia. We get 2x as much from Canada.  Of course, a stable Saudi is good for America and the global economy so it helps to have good relations in place.

Have they? Firstly I don't see the relevance of steadfastness if it's not coupled with power... you might as well call Malta "your most steadfast ally". UK can't give you much more then a veto in the EU(which you could pretty easily from other European countries) and access to strategically valuable islands(all of which are far from irreplaceable.) And I  doubt the UK has been a more steadfast then Canada, Australia or Israel... all three of which are far more valuable to America then then the UK is, from a realpolitik perspective(and in the case of Canada and Israel, probably from a sentimental perspective as well).

As for Saudi Arabia, all that oil counts a lot more then a few shady citizens. The thing about oil is that the source your oil comes from isn't relevant- oil prices are more or less bound at the hip on an international scale, so even if 0% of your oil came from SA they would still have just as much of an impact on your prices. More importantly Saudi Arabia is America's only reliable base for attacking Iran(as it was previously for attacking Iraq): Israel is too distant and staging an attack from Israel would be a PR disaster, Kuwait/UAE/Bahrain are too vulnerable to being knocked out before America's army gets organized, Turkey has drifted away from America, and the new Iraqi/Afghan governments are from all appearances semi-hostile towards America.

[President Marokai]

Trainwreck threads like this are why I find it difficult to bring myself to post much these days.

[oakvale]

This thread has literally rendered me speechless. There is nothing I can say.

[Lief]

Whyte Supremacist Rain isn't banned yet?