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| Britain |
| Special relationship? |
| 2010-06-14 |
| h/t Instapundit The USA is my favourite foreign country -- but I never forget that it is foreign, and has often been our enemy and our rival. So I am rather pleased that President Barack Obama has openly shown hostility to this country over the BP oil spill, unlike several of his forerunners, who smiled at us while doing us down. It may help us all grow up and stop fawning on Washington. Far too many people -- many of them academics, many politicians -- continue to jabber about a supposed 'special relationship' between our two countries. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #15 Man of the world, man of nowhere. Tragic that. Forgive me, but I'd be shopping Angie. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-06-14 21:37 |
| #14 since the US does not recognize dual citizenship status My boyfriend has an American mother and a British father, and thus has both nationalities (plus a Euro passport now). He was once considering a job -- I'm not sure it was firm enough to be called an offer -- with the US government which would have required him to renounce his British citizenship. He balked at that. But that suggests that the US recognizes the dual citizenship, at least to the extent that it recognizes it would be inconvenient in that case. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2010-06-14 20:27 |
| #13 I take the long view. In time, the leak WILL BE STOPPED and BP will recover. The oil will dissipate and fishing will be better than ever. Unfortunately, it will NOT be the same for America under Obama however. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-06-14 19:11 |
| #12 I don't know about the GM comparison but I remember a British nanny killing an American infant and the Britts rallied around the Nan y and villidied the family. When a US kid spray painted cars in Singapore and was sentenced to be canned the families attempts to rally the US to support them resulted in folks in the US agreeing with Skngapore. The US doesn't tend to rally around the flag at the drop of a hat. Perhaps that's part of Being the hyperpower. |
| Posted by: Rjschwarz 2010-06-14 19:02 |
| #11 Aw, c'mon Pete! No hard feelings just because one your biggest corporations just polluted the hell out of the Gulf of Mexico, ruined the fishing, ruined the property values, ruined the lives of everybody who lives there. We're not upset! /sarc Like hell we're not. Friends don't treat each other that way. We're sorry about Obama and we're gonna pay the price for electing him whether we all realize it yet or not. Now you can man up and be sorry about BP and you can bloody well pay up too. It's called responsibility. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-06-14 16:58 |
| #10 I'm increasingly inclined to believe that he's relishing the chance to stick it to the Brits. No other explanation makes sense here, given how shabbily he's treated them-- again and again and again. |
| Posted by: lex 2010-06-14 16:34 |
| #9 He's singlehandedly jeopardizing their retirement prospects. I'm beginning to wonder if that's the point. We all know how Bambi hates all things British, and his current rhetoric is perfectly in tune to the Cloven-Pickard strategy. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2010-06-14 12:50 |
| #8 everybody in the US would not stand behind GM right or wrong... You would if your retirement depended wholly or in large part on dividends from GM. In the universe of safe, stable investments for British pensioners, BP is the 800-lb gorilla. Most pension funds in the UK have significant exposure to BP, which, despite the spill, is still one of the world's biggest and best-run cash cows. That Bambi is trashing BP and causing its price to crater is a source of deep and very serious concern to any Briton over the age of 50. He's singlehandedly jeopardizing their retirement prospects. I'd be furious, too. I seriously doubt that any GOP president of recent years would be playing the cards that Bambi's playing now. At a minimum, they'd be working quietly, behind the scenes. |
| Posted by: lex 2010-06-14 12:07 |
| #7 It's my understanding that the US will recognize dual citizenship if it is bestowed upon someone, but not if it is requested. Of course, several countries have put in place mechanisms to get around this. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-06-14 10:27 |
| #6 I have been having a running argument with brits on one of their discussion sites. I point out that if GM did something like BP did in the US everybody in the US would not stand behind GM right or wrong... I think it is provincialism on the part of the Brits! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2010-06-14 10:26 |
| #5 A lot of Brits felt the special relationship should have ended during Bush's admin, some said it was already dead. I think they are now realizing how cozy it actually was most of the time. At some point if things aren't repaired tourism dollars will start to dry up as well (that is worse than the economy has made them), then a number of folks will really regret having their dreams come true. At this point the Australians should be making a full press on turning their close friendship into a special relationship. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-06-14 10:01 |
| #4 So Bambi obtained his scholarships under false pretenses? |
| Posted by: Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2010-06-14 09:51 |
| #3 The US does not recognize dual citizenships, but those countries do. Same with the UK. Ms. Lotp is contemplating marrying her British beloved, at which point she would gain dual citizenship according to British law but not in the eyes of US law. |
| Posted by: lotp 2010-06-14 09:27 |
| #2 since the US does not recognize dual citizenship status. That's what I thought. But I have friends who just became American citizens who kept their Canadian citizenship... and one of them kept the Mexican citizenship he hadn't given up when he became Canadian, as well. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-06-14 09:10 |
| #1 Keep in mind when reading the article that this is the (lesser) brother and rival of Christopher Hitchens. He's detested the US for many years, and that only intensified when his brother took citizenship here, which required renouncing his British citizenship since the US does not recognize dual citizenship status. And ... this American bloodly well does know where Wales is since my maternal great-grandparents, David Llywelyn Davies and his wife Esther, came from the south Wales coal region. However, we are hearing from British friends that Obama has infuriated the country with his deliberate slights, combined with demands for punitive financial actions against BP at a time when the British economy is even more precarious than ours. The lesser Hitchens will find willing readers, alas. |
| Posted by: lotp 2010-06-14 07:24 |