The Daily Mail has a hilarious piece about president Obama’s visit to Britain. Quentin Letts tells of PM Gordon Brown nearly “shattering the television camera lenses” with his “moony grin.”

Oh Gordon, your smile! The Prime Minister, appearing alongside Barack Obama after breakfast today, stared at his American visitor and almost shattered the TV camera lenses with his moony grin.

You could have played Jewish harp with his lower lip, it was stretched so twangy tight.

Messrs Mills and Boon, when next looking for a book cover for one of their romantic novellas, when next seeking an illustration of doggy devotion, could do worse than use a photograph of the Prime Minister at the meeting.

That’s only the beginning! Click over and read the rest.

-Chris Jones

If only someone would tell this exact thing to Barack Obama:

Remember when close to half of the United States electorate said of Barack Obama, “he’s not ready” and “he’ll be in over his head” or “this is no time for on the job training” — guess what? We were right.

Americans and Brits have been trying to figure out why the president treated PM Gordon Brown like a relative he hates but is forced to visit with once a year, and now we know.

According to The Daily Telegraph in London, the reason for the ill-treatment of Brown was that the president was simply “overwhelmed.” White House sources are saying they fear Obama is not getting enough rest. Aww — the poor thing.

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.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

It’s easy to criticize from the campaign trail and talk about how much better you could do it than president Bush, but I don’t remember Bush ever shirking his responsibilities because he was tired or overwhelmed. Mr. smart ass hope and change has discovered it’s not quite so easy to carry the fate of the free world on your back, especially when you’ve never even run a small company or had any executive experience at all.

You’d think with all the Ivy League education between the president and his wife they would no better than to give the PM of Great Britain a box of DVDs he could get off Amazon.com. DVD’s I might add that can’t be played in the UK anyway, because they’re not coded correctly to play on European machines. Even worse than that are the toy helicopters Michelle Obama got from the White House gift store for the Prime Minister’s kids. Could she be anymore cheap and insulting than that?

Also, remember how Barack Obama promised to “repair” the supposedly damaged relationships with our allies? That was all just phony rhetoric anyway, because there is no damage or at least there was no damage — until now. Obama’s first foray into foreign policy was to insult our closest ally who we need more than ever in Afghanistan. Nice one.

To add insult to injury, when questioned about the botched visit by the PM, a State Department official told the Sunday Telegraph the following:

The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment."

Trading in cowboy diplomacy for dumbass diplomacy — now that’s change we can believe in.

-Chris Jones

President Obama treated our dear British friends the way someone treats a relative they can’t stand but must visit once a year.

British PM Gordon Brown was treated like a disposable ally on his first trip to Obama’s America. First Obama snubbed him on the usual official rose garden press conference that our best friends usually get.

Then he made all of us look like assholes with the lame ass gift he gave. He gave Brown (who’s not a film buff) a boxed set of 25 classic American movies on DVD. Wow, he must have had that rushed from Amazon.com.

Michelle Obama gave Gordon Brown’s kids a plastic toy replica of Marine One from the White House gift store. Frankly, that’s almost too egregious for words.

Here’s what Gordon Brown gave to Obama:

Mr Brown’s gifts included an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, once named HMS President.

Mr Obama was so delighted he has already put it in pride of place in the Oval Office on the Resolute desk which was carved from timbers of Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute.

Another treasure given to the U.S. President was the framed commission for HMS Resolute, a vessel that came to symbolise Anglo-US peace when it was saved from ice packs by Americans and given to Queen Victoria.

Finally, Mr Brown gave a first edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

With all the wealth Obama is stealing from the American taxpayer you’d think he could’ve splurged a little for our greatest ally.

What a disgrace.

It looks like Britain’s new Prime Minister is the weak kneed leader we all thought he was. Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown’s pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists.

Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as “jirgas”, with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer. Readers might recall it was not long ago that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf held “jirgas” with the same people in hopes that the Taliban would agree not to hang out with Al-Qaeda anymore. Of course they did agree, and of course they lied.

The Prime Minister had denied reports of talks with the Taliban under questioning from David Cameron, the Tory leader, in Parliament just 24 hours prior to the London Telegraph breaking the story.

The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: “We will not enter into any negotiations with these people.”

The Government was apparently prepared to admit that the talks had taken place but Gordon Brown was thought to have “bottled out” just before Prime Minister’s Questions on Dec 12, when he made his denial instead.

Not surprisingly the U.S. government is “extremely unhappy” that our closest ally has been trying to negotiate with terrorists who supported the September 11th attackers.

This is the kind of crap we have come to expect from some allies, but Britain is not one of them. Ironically, under the leadership of Nicolas Sarkozy, France has finally located it’s balls and is fast becoming our staunchest ally and a favorite of President Bush.

The idea that Islamic fanatics like the Taliban are ever going to live up to any agreement is absurd, and Britain knows better.

-Chris Jones

Britain will withdraw nearly half its troops in Iraq beginning next spring, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday, leaving a contingent of 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Brown told lawmakers the plan follows the success of the U.S. troop increase this summer and efforts by Iraqis to drive suspected al-Qaeda militants from havens in Anbar province west of Baghdad.