A story in Politico on Friday attempted to absolve President Obama of criticism that he snubbed Britain by returning a bust of Winston Churchill at the beginning of his first term in office.
“On the same day the mayor of London questioned Barack Obama’s commitment to the United Kingdom’s ideals by citing a debunked story that the White House jettisoned the bust of Winston Churchill, the president affirmed his admiration for the country’s iconic wartime prime minister,” said the Politico report. “And he reminded the world that Churchill’s image is well-enshrined at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
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The story dismissed Obama’s critics as “Churchill bust truthers.”
But, actually, the bust at the center of the controversy was indeed removed from its former place of honor in the Oval Office and sent back to Britain, as Obama has admitted, in order to make room for a bust of Martin Luther King.
At the same time, however, a different bust of Churchill remained in the White House. So there is scope for disagreement between those who say there was a snub in the return of the Oval Office bust and those who there wasn’t. Using the word “truthers,” which normally describes those who claim the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a U.S. government conspiracy, clearly puts Politico on Obama’s side of the argument.
The bust controversy goes back to at least 2012, at which time the White House admitted a bust of Churchill that previously resided there had been returned to the British embassy.
“The bust that was returned was returned as a matter of course with all the other artwork that had been loaned to President Bush for display in his Oval Office and not something that President Obama or his Administration chose to do,” then-White House aide Dan Pfeiffer wrote in a blog post in July of 2012.
The post was a response to conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer who had written in the Washington Post that Obama “started his presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.”
The White House has, however, pointed to a near-identical bust of Churchill that has remained on residence since the 1960s.
On Friday, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted a joint press conference in London and the president referred to the bust as a symbol of longstanding friendship between the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
