Tony Karon listened and it was pretty much what you’d expect:
Obama’s key point: The “special relationship” is fine, unchanged, based not just on shared history, heritage, language and culture, but on “values and beliefs that have united our people through the ages”.
Great things had been achieved over the past decade in saving the global economy and moving to finish the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he noted. But great challenges lay ahead ranging from managing the global financial system to stopping terrorism and nuclear proliferation, fighting climate change and disease and ensuring happy outcomes in the Arab uprisings by investing in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt. The U.S. and British economies would have to expand their investments in science in order to retain their edge, help feed the world’s hungry, encourage economic development and women’s rights, and so on. If that sounds like a yadda-yadda collection of bromides worthy of a State of the Union address — well, that’s what it was.