Really? The disposition of a piece of art is among the things you find troubling?
The president explained that the bust is placed outside his private office in the White House residence, known as the Treaty Room, where he sees it "every day, including on weekends, when I’m going into that office to watch a basketball game.” It was long rumored that Obama had sent the bust back to the British Embassy after removing it from the Oval Office.
Source
The return occurred ages ago, apparently in 2009. Also it wasn't "ours" to keep.
- A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.
The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.
But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."
Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden's official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.
We know the bust didn't sit in the Oval Office. It sat outside the Treaty room in the White House residential quarters.
2010 Photo of Obama and Cameron gazing at the Churchill bronze.
At the start of the Bush administration Prime Minister Blair lent President Bush a bust that matched the one in the White House, which was being worked on at the time and was later returned to the residence. The version lent by Prime Minister Blair was displayed by President Bush until the end of his Presidency. On January 20, 2009 -- Inauguration Day -- all of the art lent specifically for President Bush’s Oval Office was removed by the curator’s office, as is common practice at the end of every presidency.
As it turns out, a lot of "low information" people with axes to grind are willing to say and believe just about anything, and most especially things that bake nicely with their special blend of confirmation bias. So what's the truth? It appears
The claim that Obama discarded a Churchill bust is not new. In 2012, rumors
circulated of an undiplomatic redecorating, prompting the White House to publish a
blogpost titled Fact Check: The Bust of Winston Churchill, which claimed: “This is 100% false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room.”
So, has
Boris Johnson got his facts wrong? The answer is a little more complicated.
The bust in question, by British sculptor Jacob Epstein, was given to President George W Bush by the British government
in 2001 and was placed in the Oval Office. But the statue was not donated, it was simply on loan for Bush’s term in office (a loan which the British government decided to extend when Bush was re-elected in 2004). Churchill disappeared from the White House in 2009, when the loan ended at the same time that Obama moved in.
So how was the White House able to claim in 2012 that the bust was still there?
When writing the blogpost, the then communications director Dan Pfeiffer simply neglected to mention the fact that there are two Churchill busts – the one on loan to Bush from 2001 to 2009, and a second bust which the White House has had since the 1960s and still has to this day – a fact which Pfeiffer later had to clarify in an update at the end of the post.
Boris Johnson is wrong to claim that the vanishing Churchill bust symbolizes Obama’s antipathy towards Britain – it was never Obama’s statue to give away. But the White House’s initial claim that the bust was still in the Oval Office was also a convenient spin on the facts.
The Guardian’s David Smith made a confirmed sighting of the other bust – the one given to George W Bush, when he interviewed the outgoing British ambassador in December last year. Sir Peter Westmacott said the bust was only ever on loan as a personal gift from Tony Blair to George W Bush for the duration of his presidency.
“So, to be honest, we always expected that to leave the Oval Office just like everything else that a president has tends to be changed.”
Speaking at his joint press conference with David Cameron in London, President Obama confirmed that there was a bust of Churchill in the White House residence outside of his office, which he saw every day. “I love Churchill,” he said, before describing the lack of space and risk of “clutter” in the Oval Office.
As the first African-American president, he thought it right to have a bust of Rev Martin Luther King Jr in the Oval Office “to remind him of the people who helped get him there”.
The bust of Dr King sits on a table alongside the fireplace and is often pictured as Obama meets visiting dignitaries for talks.
So there you have it.
