Muted welcome for Brown from US media

Thursday, March 5. His speech may have gone down a treat with Congress yesterday, but the American press coverage of Gordon Brown's trip to Washington has been muted at best and non-existent at worst. The major papers only covered it briefly on inside pages and many political sites ignored it completely.

For Time magazine, Michael Scherer just didn't understand why the British media was making such a fuss about Brown's visit. "It's kind of pathetic," he wrote, "but then it must be hard begging favour from a former colony, so I won't begrudge the Brits."

Writing for the Washingon Post, Dana Milbank agreed with the British media in saying that Barack Obama treated Brown's arrival coldly. As well as Press secretary Robert Gibbs's use of the phrase "special partnership" rather than the Churchillian "special relationship", when Brown touched down at Andrews airforce base on Monday, "Obama, breaking with precedent, wouldn't grant the prime minister the customary honour of standing beside him in front of the two nations' flags for the TV cameras." Brown looked awkward, said Milbank: "It was a surprisingly cool reception for an ally."

In the New York Times, Jeff Zeleny and David Sanger focused on possible solutions to the economic crisis that might arise from Brown's visit. But, "while Mr Brown referred to his idea as a 'global New Deal,' that phrase was not repeated in public by Mr Obama. Aides said the President also did not repeat the slogan during the lunch," wrote Zeleny and Sanger. Compared to the way George Bush treated Tony Blair, "The meeting between the men [Obama and Brown] was understated."

Writing on his blog for American Prospect, Ezra Klein said Brown's speech was, "in most parts, a loving paean to American values." But the bold economic claims were "a bit confusing… given that Britain's stimulus plan is fairly paltry: 0.9 percent of GDP, as compared to 5.5 per cent of GDP for our effort."

And writing from America for the Guardian, Michael Tomasky said that though the prime minister's speech "hit all the requisite ceremonial notes, and then some," it didn't make the front pages of the papers. "It is the only speech I've ever seen Brown give in its entirety," said Tomasky. "But I can say it was much better than I'd expected, and even, in parts, rather powerful.

"Speech of his life? I'll leave that to you folks to decide. But this American likes what he heard. Brown is a prime minister who's very much in tune with the leader of the free world and who can help usher in an era of global co-operation beyond any known precedent. I'd think about that before allowing myself to be seduced by the other fellow just because he's younger and thinner."

FIRST POSTED MARCH 5, 2009