Sen. Obama meets with British prime minister

Los Angeles Times

LONDON — Barack Obama turned his attention back to the stalled U.S. economy Saturday as he wrapped up an eight-country trip abroad with a stroll through the gardens of 10 Downing St. with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting said he would not be surprised if his travels had dented his popularity in a nation where economic hardship is the top voter concern.

“We’ve been out of the country for a week,” he told news crews outside the British prime minister’s residence. “People are worried about gas prices. They’re worried about home foreclosures.”

Obama described his talks with foreign leaders as relevant to the U.S. economic downturn. Cooperation with allies in settling conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, could free up money spent by the U.S. military each month on waging war.

“That’s $10 billion, $15 billion that we can’t spend at home to rebuild our economy,” Obama said.

Obama’s trip has drawn scathing criticism from his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

“With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Sen. Obama now addressing his speeches to ‘the people of the world,’ I’m starting to feel a little left out,” McCain said in an address focused largely on the domestic economy. “Maybe you are, too.”

In London, Obama pointed to McCain’s recent trips to Canada, Mexico and Colombia.

“It doesn’t strike me that we’ve done anything different than what the McCain campaign has done, which is to recognize that part of the job of being president and commander in chief is to forge effective relationships with our allies,” he said.

A main goal of the trip, he said, was to give allied leaders and the American public “some sense of where an Obama administration might take our foreign policy.”

On a sunny and warm London morning, Obama and Brown chatted for more than an hour on a patio at 10 Downing St. Brown appeared to do much of the talking; Obama listened, hand on cheek.

The pair also walked the gardens of the residence, having an animated conversation along the way, and spent some time in state rooms inside. They discussed Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, climate change, world financial markets and peace efforts in the Middle East, Obama said.

Afterward, the Illinois senator emerged alone from the famous black front door labeled “10,” the latest in a series of settings designed by his campaign to make Obama appear presidential overseas. Over the last week, he has met with heads of state in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany and France.

A spokesman for Brown called Saturday’s talks “warm and engaging.”

Before the meeting with Brown, Obama had breakfast with former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a library at the Churchill Hotel. He met later with David Cameron, the opposition Conservative Party leader.

Obama also spoke publicly for the first time Saturday about the cancellation of his scheduled visit Friday to a U.S. military hospital in Germany to see troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cancellation led McCain publicly to question Obama’s support for the troops.

Obama said he canceled the stop after the Pentagon barred a campaign adviser from accompanying him, triggering concern that the hospital visit would be seen as political.

“The last thing I want to do,” he said, “is have injured soldiers and staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not, or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns.”