Oh yeah, he’s totally gangsta.
(Telegraph) — Barack Obama has snubbed Britain’s most eminent scientists by refusing to attend a Royal Society banquet in his honour at which he was to be awarded with a prestigious medal.
The US President rejected the invitation from the world-leading group of scientists and instead chose to visit a south London state school.
Sources close to the state visit said members of the Royal Society were “deeply offended” by the snub and had accused Mr Obama of being obsessed with his “street cred”.
The US President was offered the chance to receive the King Charles II medal, which is awarded in “exceptional circumstances” to heads of state who have “made an outstanding contribution to furthering scientific research in their country”.
But Mr Obama’s aides responded to the invitation with a “very short” note in which they said the president would rather spend time at a south London state school.
Mr Obama visited The Globe Academy in Southwark with David Cameron, the Prime Minister, on Tuesday.
The two leaders swapped a number of high-fives with pupils before rolling up their sleeves for a game of table tennis against two schoolboys.
A British government source close to the Obama visit said: “The Royal Society was really keen to do something with Obama and they expected him to be very honoured by the medal.
“Instead they received a very short response from his people saying that it would be better for him to visit a state school.
“The inference they took from that was that he was more interested in cultivating his street cred than in building links with British scientists.”
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