Moe Lane

Walter Russell Mead, on our British cousins:

One of the central dynamics that made Britain great for so long still seems to be working.  Financial and economic crises recur in healthy capitalist economies.  When these crises come, some countries that have only reluctantly embraced a capitalist system (and usually done so poorly and half heartedly), see the crisis as proof that capitalism is a flop, and lurch toward “alternative models” that generally lead to stagnation and the capture of the state by rent-seeking elites spouting empty populist slogans.  Think Argentina.  Think Greece.

Think the Obama administration… sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.

Britain is one of the countries that historically responds to crises of capitalism by doubling down: seeking reforms that make capitalism work more effectively rather than trying to hobble and block it.

Hmm.  Maybe I did mean to interrupt.

Via Instapundit.

Great Britain is looking over with some alarm at the rest of Europe again.  They probably won’t have to, you know, set those charges off any time soon – but, you know.  Be prepared, and all that.

…What?  Yeah, suuuuuuuuure they don’t have any explosive charges there.  After all, they are one big, happy fleet.

What?  Oh, I certainly hope that the use of that phrase infuriates the cultural relativists: it’s largely because of them that we’re seeing rioting in Great Britain right now (well, that and the straight-up bigotry of low expectations racism that’s a good deal more prevalent among the Left than the Left perhaps would care to admit, or even acknowledge).  Frankly, I am all about cultural imperialism.  More accurately, I am all about my culture’s cultural imperialism.  It’s nothing personal: we’re just better than everybody else.

But I digress.

Anyway, it’s said that good fences make good neighbors; turns out that good neighbors make one heck of a good fence, too.  Particularly when they’ve just embraced the hot new fad of American-style baseball.  Or just come from their place of work so quickly that they completely forgot to put down their kebab doner knives.  Or whatever creative excuse that the Brits are coming up with to be standing around in groups with a wide variety of hand weapons. (more…)

Ahem. “It’s all because of the oil.”

Ed Morrissey and Fausta are both not getting why the President is taking the side of Argentina (thus sharing a podium with that noted beacon of freedom, tolerance, and capitalism known as Venezuela) in its perennial attempts to get the United Kingdom to give up the Falkland Islands. It’s not just that we’re signed on to the OAS declaration demanding that the British negotiate on the question of giving up territory that doesn’t want to be given up; we’re even endorsing Argentina’s blustering insistence on calling the islands by the prior name.  All in all, this is a fairly significant change: the question is, why?

The answer is in two parts, both of them easy to grasp: first, President Obama doesn’t particularly like the British.  It’s largely a racial thing, alas: the President’s grandfather had personal issues with the British colonial government, and the President has never really forgiven them for it*.  Second, and probably more importantly (for Obama, at least**): Argentina will probably offer the President a better deal for the Falklands’ resources.  And before you say “What, sheep?” …nope.  Oil.  It’s confirmed now that there’s oil there.

See?  Easy to understand: President Obama hates one side, and the other side will be happy to kiss up to to the President in exchange for the opportunity to get a hold of several billion dollars’ worth of oil revenue.  If you have the kind of mind that the President does, it’s practically a no-brainer… which I suppose could also describe my reaction to this, if not in the way that the term is usually used… (more…)

OK, I admit it: the Ambassador to France part is mostly mentioned because of the Yo Gabba Gabba thing.  Which is something that I’ve never actually watched, although I have a sinking feeling that as the kids get older I will be forced to correct that.  Anyway, it’s business as usual when it comes to giving out the prestige diplomatic appointments:

Big Dem Donors Score Plum Ambassadorships

Yo Gabba Gabba, indeed.

President Obama last night announced his intention to nominate a dozen individuals to key ambassadorships. Among them: entertainment executive and Democratic fundraiser Charles Rivkin, who the president has tapped to be Ambassador to France.

In 2005 Rivkin became president and CEO of W!LDBRAIN, an award-winning entertainment company that produces the Nickelodeon hit “Yo Gabba Gabba!” He served as the co-finance chair in California of then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

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Charmingly retro.

It was even popular in England: it was only because VHS won out in the US that it died out over there. In other words, a Betamax gift would have rocked, Iowahawk.

Sorry: it turns out that the stupid jokes that we all made about how the DVDs that Obama gave Brown were the wrong region were…

Yeah. Yeah, they were. How do we know? Because the Prime Minister actually sat down to watch ‘em, that’s how we know.

I never want to hear another single damned word about how intellectually incurious George W Bush was.

EVER.

Moe Lane

Yeah, that should be good for another 200 points on the Dow.

Ed Morrissey is dizzy with trying to figure out which would have been worse: President Obama meaning the snub to Brown and Great Britain, or that it was apparently just a by-product of the administration’s inability to run the country. Me, I’m too busy being appalled that there are supposedly functional adults in the Democratic Party that thought that saying the below would help. Read the whole thing, but only if you think that both your head and the wall will survive the pounding that you’ll be giving the latter with the former:

Barack Obama ‘too tired’ to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown
Barack Obama’s offhand approach to Gordon Brown’s Washington visit last week came about because the president was facing exhaustion over America’s economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been “overwhelmed” by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

Mr. President?

Man up.
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