Barack Obama does not have a tea party?

Prior to Obama’s election victory in November 2008 I found myself having a rare conversation with my daughter about politics.  We have debated several issues over the years mainly about minor issues or with me trying to avoid major confrontation (Bull fighting was one I managed to shy away from).  Anyway, one issue that came up in conversation was her admiration for the pre-election successes of Obama and how good a victory for him would be good the the US and the World in general.  I have to say that for some reason I was not convinced.  I can’t put my finger on what it was that made me to this lack of conviction save the fact that I could see little reason why the black community in the UK would get so excited over Obama given that there would be little hope of his “yes we can” mantra.

In the UK, “no you can’t” I heard myself thinking.  I was also unconvinced over his ability to actually make any real change in US attitudes.  What I didn’t know at this time (given his rapturous welcome in the UK) was that Mr Obama was rabidly anti-British.  This antipathy based largely on massively flawed “evidence” from the Obama extended Kenyan family.   I thought it odd when he was quoted as fact, that his grandfather had been tortured by the British Army during the Mau Mau campaign in Kenya during the late 1950’s.  Sadly, his evidence was flawed because the Army had not been deployed against Mau Mau at the time of the alleged torture.   Anyway, this is neither here not there, it was not a consideration in my suspicion of the Obama “yes we can” approach to the election.  It was just that it was so unlikely.

So, in this conversation with my daughter in 2008 just prior to the US elections that I said that if Obama would win that he would simply turn out to be a “busted flush”.  He would achieve nothing and would find himself turned on my the American people who would soon discover that it is not just a matter of saying “yes we can” and that IT will !

So here we are in November 2010 and for some bizarre reasons the UK press is awash with the US mid term elections and, surprise surprise, Obama has had a thrashing from the electorate.  The “Tea Party” is over?   What next, will Mr Obama manage a recovery like that of Bill Clinton proving that HE was the real “come back kid” an appendage earned after his successes in the 1992 Presidential campaign?

Obama has been accused of being a “Socialist” by the Republican Right, clearly they have not lived under real socialism or indeed under the benign kind of UK style of socialism (?) – a National Health Service and State Pension Scheme can hardly be seen as bad can they?  Oh “yes they can” if you are American?

I am being cruel now and I do not intend that.  I am simply saying to all those who thought that Obama would be the one who would save the World.  He didn’t, he won’t and let me remind you all… I told you so back in 2008.  

What of the future in the US?  Well, certainly no universal health care or universal “state” pension that’s for sure.  Why not? Oh that’s because the well off in America can see no point in paying tax to help those who are NOT well off.  But then this is all together another subject.

PS: The “Special Relationship”, forget it! It stopped with Bush and Blair and died with Obama.  The so called “relationship is all one sided where may American politicians seem to believe that the UK is just another US State and that US Laws apply in the UK yet UK Laws DO NOT apply in the US.  Extradition, one way.  Trade, one way. 

The new “treaty” with France and our shared defences may prove far more realistic than the one we have had with America.  But we will have to see.