President O'Bama's European tour

How are things in Moneygall? Well, the Guinness seems to have gone down well! Statesmanship or electioneering? After all he's got many sets of great-great-great-…-great-grandparents.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/23/obama-visit-jubilation-moneygall

Tomorrow and for three days, he's in Britain for an official state visit, before heading off to Poland and France. The “official state visit” means he's the guest of the Queen rather than the government and will be sleeping at Buckingham Palace. Will he take the public carriage ride (a convention of such visits) – President Bush declined this when he was here for security reasons, even though the President of China and the Emperor of Japan have both done so.

More importantly he will be accorded the rare honour of addressing both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. I can't recall any other US President being invited to do this and only Nelson Mandela and HMQ within my adult lifetime.

And, as not a natural atlanticist, what will he actually say? Will the UK be squirming as Israel did last week? And if so, will David Cameron have the balls to stand up to him like Bibi?

PS Looking forward to some apostrophe abuse.

Updated On: 5/23/11 at 06:18 PM

You're just not used to leaders who lead, goth.

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Crikey, he's already started.

“I think,” the president said, “what the Queen symbolizes — not just to Great Britain but to the entire commonwealth and obviously the entire world — is the best of England. And we’re very proud of her.”

Obama is proud of Queen Elizabeth? Not being a British citizen and not having anything to do with her upbringing or success as a monarch, why is Obama proud?

The definition of proud must include some self satisfaction. Once again, Obama has to point back to himself.
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What do you want him to say, Goth? "Buh-buh-buh but Prince Georgie W. Bush"???

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Yeah, Obama relies way too much on his teleprompters, unlike Bush or St. Reagan who never, ever used teleprompters.

Oh, wait...

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"My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I've come home..."

Snort!
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"He downed a pint of Guinness with a distant cousin and checked out centuries-old parish records tracing his family to Ireland."

Irish people would of course respond to that.

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Were you able to get any straws with that grasp? Didn't think so.

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Well, in his address at the State Banquet I think he went out of his way to correct any previous perceptions of faux pas (much discussed on this board already). Not that I would consider them to be faux pas - I'm certain that was the British media deliberately misinterpreting things to make trouble for Gordon Brown (who has been emptied out of his coffin for tonight's occasion).

And I have to say, whilst ignoring politics, I think he's an excellent orator and is blessed with a magnificent voice.

And good to hear HMQ specifically acknowledge the mutual theatre exchange and American musicals in particular. Kevin Spacey was there and, maybe I'm going mad, but I thought I saw Kristin Chenoweth as well.

It's funny watching you parse the president's statments. To, you know, diagram them. And questioning the meaning behind the words he's using. It's a real change from the way things used to be.

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The first problem is that he said he had his first Guinness in Shannon, which apparently implicitly means that he's never had another one since, so how would he even KNOW what they taste like in the US?

But he was referring to an earlier trip, not this one.

So he should have said "I came to realize . . ." etc.

What he should have said was "Give me a Guinness once, shame on---shame on you. Give me--you can't give me a Guinness again."