Buckingham Palace censors Clinton pictures ahead of Queen's Bush visit in May

[emad]

The Buckingham Palace website has published some very selective images of US presidential visits to the UK ahead of Queen Elizabeth's stay with the Bushes on May 8th.

Blatant Rovian pressure ahead of the State Visit and 2008 White House election?

The only picture of President and Mrs Clinton is from December 2000:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page3895.asp?GalleryID=11&ItemID=795

That looks like censorship to me!

Prior to the 2000 Clinton visit the website carried pictures of the following:

1992: Gov and Mrs Clinton as Guests of Honor at a Marlborough House reception hosted by HM the Queen on 10 April 1992, for UK PM John Major the day after he won the UK general election. Some of the best of these pics can still be seen in Major's memoir John Major: The Autobiography, published 2000 but have been officially deleted at Buck House.

The link to these pictures on the Palace website used to carry excerpts from an interview which Clinton gave outlining his White House 1992 running plans. It was the first time Clinton had talked to the UK press about his this.

1995: The Clintons were the Queen's Guests of Honor at a 3 day Presidential Visit (as opposed to official State Visit) on 7/9 May 1995 to the UK festivities commemorating 50 years of Peace in Europe. The Palace website used to display all the official military ceremonies at which the Predsident officiated representing his country. Also pictured with him were UK Cabinet members and a posse of NATO top brass. Plus pics of him and Hillary at the Queen's official receptions for him in London and at her country residence.

1996: The Clintons were guests of HM The Queen on a 2 day private visit in London and the country. During this time Clinton gave a one hour interview to BBC Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman outlining his 1996 White House strategy, ahead of a fact-finding trip to Ethiopia and Solamia where he gave an interview to ITN journos aboard Airforce One.

Extracts from these interviews and the accompanying pics used to be on the Palace webiste.

And of course Clinton's 1998 UK visit where he was a guest at Downing Street as well as Buck House have also disappeared.

Looking at the Gallery the impression you get is that from George H Bush's trip to Buckingam Palace in 1989, the only other US presidential visit was Clinton's in December 2000 and Dumbass's 2003 Official State Visit.

I call this a whitewash.

Ambassador Robert Holmes Tuttle must be thrilled at the Rovian masterstroke he has pulled off for his White House string pullers.

[peekaloo]

1. I read your headline wrong and laughed. Thought it said Queen Bush's visit.

Winston Smith is alive and well it seems.

[Kolesar]

2. Bang, bang Obama's silver hammer came down upon her head?

Ok. I know Barack was not behind De Vellis' Apple-ripoff-ad. He's too classy for that. I just could not resist making a Beatles joke since this was about England.

[emad]

3. It just gives the maggots festing off the Bush publicity more fodder

for their perceived slant on history.

[Solo_in_MD]

4. Your tinfoil is showing

The Palace updates to a website is a Rovian conspiracy?

CLUE: The Queen's staff accepts pressure from no one, not the PM, not the President, not Karl Rove.

[emad]

5. Nothing like selective memory. Or selective history.

Ambassador Tuttle and Karl Rove go back to the 60s as former business buddies.

If you call the Palace to ask about Clinton photos they tell you there aren't any.

[Solo_in_MD]

10. Or inaccurate complaints

Ambassador Tuttle and Karl Rove go back to the 60s as former business buddies.
And how does this have anything to do with the Palace website?

If you call the Palace to ask about Clinton photos they tell you there aren't any.
More accurately they say there is one of every US president in a different gallery.

There are enough real issues with out us going loony tunes over non issues like this.

[emad]

16. My post #15 refers in detail. The Buck House website is taxpayer

funded governmental site. Editorial policy is derived from ministerial instructions originating from Dept for Constitutional Affairs, Foreign Office and 10 Downing Street. Not from civil servants.

Under a UK Freedom of Information Act official request none of the three state offices above has said why a recent policy shift has seen the unexplained removal from the public domain of archived historical material relating to the Clinton Administration. Or, where it is available in book form eg Major's autobiography, how anyone can apply for reproduction rights as per standard practice under UK copyright law.

And on another related point:

Neither will they say, as they should under their own FIA, just who is funding the May Royal Visit, except that "security is coming out of the Diplomatic Police budget as usual."

But re the cost of the royal flight, entourage, entertainment, wardrobe, sundry travel expenditure, insurance etc all these are officially secret.

If that means the UK is not paying for this trip, then it follows the US taxpayer must be.

It just leaves one question: Whose is greatest political benefit from this trip?

It's very hard not to be cynical after four years war to see it solely as a PR excercise for the Bush administration.

British personal loathing of the US president was recently put at 91% of the population by a sunday newspaper poll.

QED.

[gratuitous]

6. The stuff of tinfoil it may be

I don't know for sure what led to the scrubbing of the website, but I will say this: This administration is preternaturally obsessed with every little detail of every little appearance by Chimpy. The worst thing about it, though, is how the bulldogs of the Fourth Estate pretend they don't notice things such as the Crawford "ranch" being little more than a stage for showing Chimpy at his most manly. And then they swallow whole the cockamamie story line out of the White House time and again that this or that major development was accomplished by junior staffers without strict, explicit orders on every detail from the highest authority.

So whether the Palace changed its website all on its own or whether they were "gently" reminded that the wildly popular Bill Clinton is of a different political party than the very unpopular White House incumbent, who might not take too kindly to the unfavorable comparison to his predecessor, it's not outside the realm of speculation that this is something the White House noticed and suggested to the Palace. And the Palace, in an effort to be as accommodating to its guest as possible, made some minor changes to its website. Based on the track record of all involved, I'd rate it as more likely than not that the White House at least suggested it, and quite possibly suggested it with the force of a demand.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. You're assuming that the palace did change its website

I'm sure emad can point us to the internet archive links to show how everything was scrubbed :rofl:

[emad]

9. The Buck House pics gallery used to have every official photo

ever taken of any foreign Head of State on an Official Visit or on a Presidential Visit.

If you now take the trouble to contact the website and ask for archived official material from the Clinton Administration years, they tell you there no longer is any and there are no plans for any future display.

If you contact the US Embassy in London, as they suggest, and ask for THEIR corresponding Clinton archived material they also stonewall.

Given that UK taxpayer expenditure on Bush 2003 state visit was in the region of £10 million, excluding the damage to Buckingham Palace lawns and flower beds caused by his chopper, is looks pretty mean to then scrimp of website coverage from the two Clinton Administrations.

Seems pretty damned partisan to me ahead of the May visit.

[Solo_in_MD]

11. So refusal to send you pictures is now a partisan conspiracy?

damn this is getting funnier with each post

:popcorn:

[Solo_in_MD]

12. Tinfoil it clearly is

The Palace knuckles to no one on internal matters. Something about being the sovereign.

For the tin foil hat crowd, nothing is "outside the realm of speculation " if it fits their predetermined world view. EVERY administration has been obssed with its image. Spin has become more of a well practiced discipline over time, but the desire was omnipresent, even during the Clinton years.

There is nothing to indicate that this was in anyway targeted. Until the OP come up with links from the various archives to the contrary, he should wear his tin foil hat clearly so the rest of his know him for what he is.

[gratuitous]

14. The Palace has knuckled to Chimpy before

So it's not outside the realm of possibility that they'd do it again. See, for example, their now-regretted decision to let the Marine One helicopter land on the Palace grounds on a prior visit from their ill-mannered guest. It was widely reported at the time that the Queen's wishes on the subject were overridden by White House paranoia for Bush's "safety" from terrorist attack.

And I merely rated it as more likely than not that any scrubbing of photos on the website were due to one of those overzealous staffers not wanting to offend the boss, similar to the situation in Denver when three people were excluded from an audience with Chimpy for going to the private event because they had the bad taste to go in a car with an anti-war bumper sticker.

And while every politician likes to stage manage his or her appearances, the manic attention to detail by the Bush administration is legendary in its obsession with minutiae, whether its a "catapult the propaganda" backdrop or the relabeling of crates adorning Chimpy's stage.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. You must have found a different 'gallery'

Because this one: http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page5916.asp?id=11

has pictures, one each, of all 11 American presidents since the Queen became the monarch. Even LBJ, who she didn't meet. And that's where you got your 'one photo' of Clinton from, isn't it?

Are you under the impression that a Buckingham Palace webpage is under the obligation to put up every single photo that has ever been taken, associated with the royal family? How strange. :shrug:

[KiraBS]

13. That is a gallery of about measuring Her Majesty's reign

and the photos a mark of her time on the throne, from Truman, who she meet as a Princess to Bush Junior.
It is a gallery with one photo of each President including Johnson whom she never meet.
I think they are so really great photos actually. I especially like the one with Bill Clinton he is seems to be using his famous charm on her.
Correct diplomacy and at least giving the impression of not favouring one President over another is very important too the palace. This gallery isn't intended to be political and it would be wrong if it was.
However it was Reagan that got Princess Diana's name wrong and Bush Jr that wreaked her garden and had more security than she has.

[emad]

15. The website is paid for by taxpayers. The photos I quoted are

in the Major book and copyrighted to the Buckingham Palace website, a government-funded site.

If you contact the website and ask for permission under the copyright laws to reproduce them they usually let you know what the score is about publishing terms, royalties etc. Standard stuff.

When I contacted them about those specific Clinton shots they said they no longer use them on the Buck House website, they no longer authorise their external use and have no plans to change their position on this. Ditto for the extracts of Clinton UK press interviews cited in my post.

Their stated policy on selection of political figures illustrating the website is derived from advice from Dept for Constitutional Affairs, the Foreign Office, Dept of Culture, Media and Sport and 10 Downing Street.

ie. It's political.

At the Royal Archives in Windsor the curator wrote to me saying he is not authorised to release any of those pics or interviews that were once on the Buck House website.

The photo I posted here today is from the latest release on the website, an announcement about which appears on their home page publicising the May US trip.

Their choice to use the December 2000 Clinton shot instead of one from when he was actually President on an official governmental visit to the UK is unrepresentative and misleading in my opinion.

In PR terms the only beneficiaries of this Royal State Visit are the Bushes, trying to suck up some brownie points to draw attention away from truly massive British disgust at the Bush/Blair fiasco of the four year war.

[KiraBS]

17. As a British Tax Payer, I have no worries about

a conspiracy. In fact I liked looking at the pictures that were there. There is a picture of Bill Clinton in December 2004, there is also a photo of The Queen with Harry Truman before she was Queen.
Most people look at it and see something of the history of The Queen's reign and the fact US Presidents have come and gone, by she is still reigning.
The British Royal Family keep meticulous archives. And the various departments work together on protocol which The Queen is rigid about keeping too. The British Civil Service is impartial, they have to work with which ever government is elected. In some departments the only political activity you are allowed to take part is voting. Party membership, demonstrations, marches etc are not allowed as part of the terms of employment. However they too have to work according to protocol when it comes to Heads of State, which means pictures they use should be current and what ever anybodies personal opinion of President Bush, he is the current head of state, therefore Clinton consigned to history.
And I think the idea of The Queen having to visit The Ranch at Texas to be amusing and embarrassing,
(Is he going to feed her Barbecue, take her hunting and show her the garden on his golfing buggy, seriously dodgy hospitality for The Queen of England who will be 81.)The Queen is very informed about what is happening in the world and always has been, she will must miss Bill Clinton who also knew what was going on.
As for the Bush/Blair relationship it is looking likely that Tony Blair will be gone by then because those running for local elections for New Labour are facing serious defeats and the country needs the matter settled, this waiting for him to go, is working well for us. And if anything the visit will generate jokey headlines about The Bush hospitality and have little effect on the actual opinion of the British public on Bush and Blair. If anything if Blair has gone by then, the press will most likely be going for his jugular.

[emad]

18. "the press will most likely be going for his jugular". Commander Yates

of the Met more likely.

I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories.

But conspiracy to pervert - as in the course of justice - is what Blair's gatekeeper Ruth Turner was arrested and questioned for, ditto Lord Levy and Chris Evans.

Post cold war US/UK relations have been a supreme exercise in presentation. I don't think that the rosy picture of the House of Windsor and the Bushes is anything more than PR desperation.

What I am critical of is blatant Bush sucking off at a time when the Poodle Administration is apoplectic to redeem itself after its disatrous alliance with a violent megalomaniacal Republican presidency.