On his very first day in the Oval Office, between the inaugural parade and the inaugural balls, President Donald Trump fulfilled a promise he made on the campaign trail — to return the bust of the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to its rightful place of honor.
And Sir Winston Churchill regains his rightful place in The Oval Office.#GottaLoveTrump pic.twitter.com/HFz1hBGoKd
— Alf Garnett (@AlfGarnettTil) January 21, 2017
And the move resulted in a profuse series of apologies from a Time magazine reporter.
The bust was removed amidst controversy in 2009 by former President Barack Obama. It was reportedly replaced with those of Abraham Lincoln and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. It was the bust of King that led to the Time apology.
Time magazine White House correspondent Zeke Miller initially reported that the Churchill bust had replaced that of King.
When a White House aide pointed out his error, Miller sounded like Obama on his worldwide apology tour — he couldn’t vow and scrape enough.
Correction: The MLK bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door.
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017
Tweeting again: wh aide confirms the MLK bust is still there. I looked for it in the oval 2x & didn’t see it. My apologies to my colleagues
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017
He looked for it twice? Miller was obviously looking for controversy and saw only what he wanted to see. And the apologies still came even after White House spokesman Sean Spicer accepted his initial apology.
.@PressSec This is on me, not my colleagues. I’ve been doing everything I can to fix my error. My apologies.
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017
An aide tells @ZekeJMiller that the MLK bust remains in the Oval Office in addition to the Churchill bust. https://t.co/EmhWNW8MES
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 21, 2017
.@farhip this was my mistake. My apologies, Paul; and to anyone else who relied on the incorrect report
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017
@JaredRizzi this was my bad
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017
And Spicer tweeted a photo of the King bust taken by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to ward off any other rumors that it had been removed.
Thanks to White House Chief of Staff for this wonderful picture of the MLK bust in the oval pic.twitter.com/Lzgj6RljvI
— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017
Republicans and conservatives were furious by Obama’s decision to remove the Churchill bust. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called the move “a great insult to the British.”
“His perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather. He probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”
During his visit to England last year, Obama defended his decision, claiming it had nothing to do with any perceived lack of respect for the British World War II leader.
“I love Winston Churchill,” Obama said at a news conference with then-British Prime Minister David Cameron. “I love the guy.”
Former London Mayor Boris Johnson disagreed. He attributed Obama’s snub to “the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire.”
But as much as Obama scrambled then, it was nothing as compared to the Time reporter’s scrambling Friday night.
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