Well, jeez, don't break yer arm or nuthin'...

Seriously...I find it hard to believe she couldn't find ONE competent translator IN THE ENTIRE STATE DEPARTMENT. (Thanks for the tip, Ace.)

If I was on the receiving end of this little slap-in-the-face, I'd at the very least wonder why the U.S. Secretary of State doesn't feel I was worth just a LITTLE extra effort.

But then, I suppose I would also consider myself lucky I didn't get a sock in the jaw:

The fears intensified when press secretary Robert Gibbs, announcing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit to the White House, demoted the Churchillian phrase "special relationship" to a mere "special partnership" across the Atlantic.

And the alarm bells really went off when Brown's entourage landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday night. Obama, breaking with precedent, wouldn't grant the prime minister the customary honor of standing beside him in front of the two nations' flags for the TV cameras. The Camp David sleepover that Blair got on his first meeting with Bush? Sorry, chaps.

Still, Brown kept a stiff upper lip as he sat in the Oval Office yesterday as Obama, skipping the usual words of welcome for his guest, went straight to questions from the news services. Brown didn't get to speak for six minutes, after Obama had already answered two questions. Gamely, the snubbed premier tried to speak the president's language.

"I don't think I could ever compete with you at basketball," Brown said. "Perhaps tennis."

"Tennis? I hear you've got a game," Obama replied mildly.

"Yes, we could maybe have a -- have a shot," the prime minister went on.

"We haven't tried it yet," the president said.

"I don't know," Brown said. "I think you'd be better, but there we are."

Obama smiled faintly. Brown spent much of the session with both soles planted on the floor, his palms gripping his thighs.

Apparently that's what happens when the One True King DOES consider you worthy of special effort.

So why all the animus? Jolly old England is one of our staunchest allies, isn't she?

Ours, yes. But, according to Baldilocks, not HIS. And she's got a pretty good hunch as to why.

If you recall, before Kenya became Kenya (1963) it was a British colony known as British East Africa. Between 1952 and 1960, there was this little “difference of opinion” between the UK and the natives of British East Africa—primarily from the Kikuyu tribe. That conflict is known as the Mau Mau Uprising. There were tens of thousands of African civilians killed and, according to Wiki, seven to ten thousand Africans interned by the British colonial masters. In Dreams from My Father, President Obama says that his grandfather was tortured by the British during the conflict, though he was not a Kikuyu but a Luo. Guess which prime minister ordered the Mau Mau insurgency to be put down.

Boy, with friends like these, no wonder Barry's always sucking up to guys like Putin and Ahmadinejad.