As great as this picture of Gordon Brown gazing on Barack Obama is (click for another pic), the Daily Mail's purple prose is even better:

[Brown's] lips puckered, forming the shape of a robin's beak, and he nodded slowly, repeatedly, at times even swallowing, so much was he salivating.



When he turned back to face us his eyes were narrow with creamy pleasure and he pushed forth his chin, stretching his lower neck

Oh, my.

Still reeling, it would seem, from former prime minister Tony Blair's subservience to the last President Bush on matters of foreign policy, the British press has been grasping at any possible sign that President Obama lacks respect for America's mother country across the Atlantic.

Hence the outrage over his crappy gifts to Brown and the Queen of England.

And hence Quentin Letts' Daily Mail column insinuating that Brown bows to Obama as Blair bowed to Bush. The Drudge Report of course seized on the chance to show how a crypto-socialist Labour party PM was in luuuuurve with Obama. More from the Mail:

Obama uttered a sentence. Mr Brown nodded. Mr Obama paused. Mr Brown froze, frowning. Mr Obama made a very slight joke. Mr Brown gassed himself, laughing for a good 30 seconds, eyelids fluttering like the wings of a soft-flapping Cabbage White.



...Mr Obama fiddled with the cuff of one sleeve, Prince Charles-style, while Mr Brown hosed him down with treacle. The Prime Minister, fluffing with nerves in a couple of places, spoke of the president's 'leadership, vision, courage, dynamism, energy, achievements...'

We're guessing it was the "hosed him down" line that really put Matt Drudge over the top. (So to speak!)