Justin Webb: The BBC’s Man In Barack Obama
JUSTIN Webb is the BBC’s Man in the US. He is keeping a close eye on Barack Obama – the Him. Hereunder are a few objective reports on Webb’s blog.
As Webb says: “I am the product of a Quaker school so am incapable of lying”.
You plant, you cultivate, you harvest! This the Axelrod dictum – indeed the Obama Doctrine – April 7
For most Czechs (though not the government) the missile defence shield (which of course is not yet built and might not work) is unpopular. Obama told them straight they were wrong. And yet still at the end they pressed forward to grasp him. Among the espostulations heard by a colleage, “Oh God I got so close – I actually touched him” – April 5
He will do his best to help with that brutal reminder – imagine the upset it would have caused if it had come from George Bush – that the terrorists in Afghanistan threaten Europe more than they do America. But he will wait as well. Actually that is what diplomacy is – April 4
Oh, lordy: a girl in the audience asks Obama if he knows that his name in Hungarian means peach! He did not – April 3
Grappling with the nervy police here in Strasbourg was testing for them but they have managed to get us into another cavernous media centre… where a woman sang “He’s got the whole world in his hands” and people clapped and swayed as they waited for Him – April 2
He was professorial and his answers were way too long, but that was probably tiredness. – April 2
The agreement with Russia on nuclear negotiations is a feather in his cap. He is helped, I think, by the fact that President Medvedev looks even younger than he does – the Krushchev-Kennedy analogy does not really work – April 1
And a last word on the teleprompter:
Which reminds me – finally on this subject, and in keeping with my new mood of admiration for his style – what an outrage it is that the press here criticise Obama for using a prompter for his structured appearences, but then stand up to ask their questions with written questions held in quivering fingers!
They come to praise him…
Image: A Book subtitled ‘Beyond Parody’.
Posted: 27th, April 2009 | In: Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
