Who's British, Brown and Red All Over?

By ABHEEK BHATTACHARYA

Barack Obama may be losing ground to John McCain in recent domestic polls, but his popularity at No. 10 Downing Street seems secure.

Britain's opposition Tories as well as the McCain campaign quickly latched onto what appears to be naked bias by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In Tuesday's Parliamentary Monitor, a version of Washington's Roll Call, he penned an article lavishing praise upon Mr. Obama. "In the electrifying U.S. presidential campaign, it is the Democrats who are generating ideas to help people through more difficult times," he wrote. The Illinois junior senator is a like-minded "progressive politician who [is] grappling with the challenges" of his time. Mr. Brown's article did not mention John McCain.

William Hague, a Conservative Member of the British Parliament, called the PM's comments "out of order." The McCain campaign's response was more mocking. Spokesman Michael Goldfarb noted that while the piece bestowed the "coveted Gordon Brown endorsement" on Mr. Obama, it seemed to do so for a policy proposal -- Mr. Obama's so-called Foreclosure Prevention Fund -- that Mr. Obama himself has quietly dropped.

Mr. Brown's supporters privately blame a junior Labour Party official who was using Mr. Obama's example to gin up support for his own party's foreclosure relief proposals. His aides say Mr. Brown never read the article before signing off. In any case, the gaffe is another reminder that Mr. Obama still draws strong support from the European elites, however much the European mass media has lately shifted its fascination to the mooseslayer Sarah Palin.