The English Embassy Gaffe

President Obama has made another largely unreported gaffe that, for novelty's sake, the Heritage Foundation would like to highlight.

In a press conference this evening, the president referred in stumbling fashion to the “English Embassy” in Iran instead of the British Embassy. One can only imagine the kind of howls of derision that would greet any presidential contender if that kind of basic error were made before, say, the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can watch the video above. 

In case the president is unaware, England forms part of Great Britain, which also includes Scotland and Wales, though not Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. There is no such thing as an “English” embassy anywhere in the world, and there hasn’t been one for several centuries.

Noman only mentions it because of the beating that Republican presidential candidates have taken for momentary mental lapses, e.g., Rick Perry's oops moment, Herman Cain on President Obama's Libya incursion.  Since the mainstream media views its mission as covering up for Democrats' mistakes (and misdeeds) while attacking Republicans' every slip up, it's good for alternative media to note the inconceivable: the President himself flubs on occasion.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this latest slip-up by President Obama. After all he recently described France as America’s closest ally, and famously declared that he has traveled to no less than 57 states. But it would be nice if the leader of the free world bothered to look at a map once in a while, or even paid a visit to the British Embassy in Washington, currently housing the Churchill bust that Mr. Obama unceremoniously threw out of the Oval Office soon after his inauguration.

The larger question is whether this most recent gaffe signifies a broader disregard for Great Britain along with other traditional US allies.

From siding with Argentina on its call for UN-brokered negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands, to placing “a boot on the throat” of BP, Britain’s largest company, the Obama administration has downgraded relations with America’s closest friend and partner on the world stage. The Special Relationship still matters greatly on several key fronts for the United States, from the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan to the global war against Islamist terrorism. US-British military and intelligence cooperation remains vital to the defense of the free world, and cooperation between London and Washington will be imperative in standing up to an increasingly aggressive Iran. The White House will no doubt dismiss this latest faux pas by the president as a slip of the tongue, but it cannot disguise the fact that it has on many occasions treated Britain and other key allies with an air of disdain, and even contempt.

Big media's Liberal bias disturbs Noman and strikes him as politically dangerous given that democracy depends upon an informed--not deformed--electorate.  Nevertheless, the Heritage Foundation's last point is the salient one.  President Obama's predilections run towards the Continent and away from Britain, towards Islam and away from Israel.  Right or wrong, his picture of the world is markedly different than most Americans'.