Republican White House hopefuls have long treated London as a useful backdrop. Ronald Reagan met Margaret Thatcher three times there before he won his party’s nomination (and before she had moved into Downing Street). But this time the parade of aspirants is faster and thicker than before. Staging a London photo-op conveys two messages — it shows foreign policy credentials and asserts the value of old alliances. Both are qualities President Barack Obama supposedly lacks. Visiting the UK is shorthand for a resurgent post-Obama America. In practice, however, London-as-prop is only highlighting the dearth of thinking on both sides of the Atlantic. Not only are many such trips miscuing. They are anything but forward-looking.
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