Now it's on! Big Zero Disses Sir Winston

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden's official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

American politicians have made quoting Churchill, whose mother was American, something of an art form, but not Mr Obama, who prefers to cite the words and works of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Indeed a bust of Mr Lincoln now sits in the Oval Office where Epstein's Churchill once ruled the roost.

Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather.

The rejection of the bust has left some British officials nervously reading the runes to see how much influence the UK can wield with the new regime in Washington.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4623148/Barack-Obama-sends-bust-of-Winston-Churchill-on-its-way-back-to-Britain.html

 

[RightCoast]

The rejection of the bust has left some British officials nervously reading the runes to see how much influence the UK can wield with the new regime in Washington.

I'm thinking none.

[Chris_]

More proof of how painfully stupid the new fuhrer is.  Clearly, this was a "decision" he tried to do without his handlers.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

FYI - The Mau Mau rebellion was a horrifically brutal affair. The Mau Mau massacred people on the scale of Rwanda. They were finally cornered in a jungle and were brought out 1 by 1 over the years as the British turned former Mau Mau's into scouts and got them to talk their former comrades to lay down their arms. A text book piece of COIN warfare. The final holdouts were literally living like animals by the end. There may have been excesses on the part of the colonial gov't but even they used kid-gloves and the Mau Mau's could never be reasonably considered sympathetic.

[Odin's Hand]

Comrades, we just needed a better representation of the new regimes' intentions than Churchill. This one is being bandied about as a replacement.

[Mike220]

Maybe they'll do a bust of this Commie. Then he can truthfully say that there's a bust of Churchill in the Office. Not that, of course, honesty is all that important to him...

[thundley4]

I vaguely remember reading that Hussein Onyango Obama was a lapdog of the British Colonial government, and lived a live of relative ease.

[franksolich]

I vaguely remember reading that Hussein Onyango Obama was a lapdog of the British Colonial government, and lived a live of relative ease.

He played both sides. 

He was one of the Mau Mau terrorists.

He was coddled and pampered by the British colonial administration in hopes he was a "moderate" well suited to helping Kenya evolve into independence; got all material things he wanted, from the British.

After the terrorists won, and Kenya was established, he expected great rewards from that side too, like being a major minister in the cabinet, but never got them.  He was shuffled off into a minor meaningless governmental post in the boondocks.

And then he died of severe alcoholism.

Thus always to those who try to play both sides.