You know you’re special when the White House not only throws you a State Dinner but puts you next to George Clooney. China might be the more important world player but you’d never get the activist heartthrob within spitting distance of Wen Jiabao.
In rolling out the red carpet, and more, for David and Samantha Cameron, President Obama had nothing to lose and everything to gain in so lavish and public a revival of the special – and uncontroversial - relationship.
Poor Gordon Brown got none of this, reduced to begging for one-on-one time with Mr Obama which he ultimately got only by chasing the President through the kitchens at the United Nations.
Many in Britain might have sympathised with Mr Obama but in America,