blondbraintrust

James Wolcott: One City, One World, One America

One of the puzzling and perverse questions raised by the poodle relationship
between Tony Blair and George Bush is what Blair gets out of it, and, by
extension, what benefit Britain obtains by playing deputy sidekick to the
Sheriff of Nazareth. Where's the payoff, the reward? Even a poodle ought to
receive a doggy treat now and then. The loyalty has been entirely one-sided.
Bush made it insultingly clear before the G8 summit that he wasn't going to do a
major budge on global warming and African aid just because Blair was so staunch
on Iraq. He said that he didn't believe in any quid pro quo and as
for Iraq--"Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping
the peace and winning the war on terror, as I did." His manner in that interview
couldn't have been more matter-of-fact and dismissive, when he wasn't blinking
up a storm.
Like Johnny Rotten in "No Feelings," President Bush has got no
emotions for anybody else, and can't be bothered even to go through the formal
motions, having so many more important, interesting things to do, such as fall
off his bicycle.
Tom Watson, blogging at The Huffington Post, noted the
difference between how the Brits mourned our losses on September 11th and how
the leader of the free world breezed
out of the summit after their losses last week.
"On the morning of
September 13th, 2001, the officer in charge of the Coldstream Guards Band and
1st Battalion Scots Guards received a call from Buckingham Palace. Banish
tradition. The music accompanying that day's tourist-swathed ceremomy at the
changing would be different. That day, the band played The Star-Spangled Banner.
The Brits were with us.
"Four years later, still firmly at the side of the
United States in general, and this administration specifically, the British felt
the domestic blow of what most Americans and Britons agree is a common enemy -
even if we disagree on the prosecution of the struggle against that
enemy.
"Our President, George W. Bush, was actually in the United Kingdom
when terror struck London. He was in Scotland, a two-hour flight from Heathrow.
Understandably, he and the other leaders completed the G8 summit, unbowed by the
carnage in the London transit system.
"And then our President came
home.
"And in doing so, he knowingly cast a gob of bitter spittle in the face
of our constant ally, and disgraced the United States of America.
"Why didn't
President Bush visit London? Why didn't he walk the streets, take a few
questions from the press, show the power of his office to Londoners? Stand at
the side of Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone?"
Because, to repeat myself, he
just couldn't be bothered.
But it is unfair to single out Bush. The
Bush/Rush/Fox News/Ann Coulter/National Review mindless blare of American
exceptionalism and entitlement has helped enlist millions of Americans into the
ranks of selfish bastards. "We are all Britons" blogtalk is cheap, like wearing
another one of those goddam colored wristbands to signal that you nominally
support a cause (sympathy as kitsch). Yet again the American eagle has exposed
its chicken feathers and rubber beak in the face of adversity. From across the
ocean Simon Jenkins at
The Huffington Post lobs a question our way.
"Can anyone on your side
help? Five days after we had four bombs explode on the London Tube and with
everyone saying, stay calm and stay normal, US Air Force officials ordered
personnel in Britain to avoid London, whether or not in uniform and including
their families. The order has since been rescinded, but the damage is
done.
"London must be one of the safest cities on Earth. The only conceivable
purchase the terrorists can get is by sowing fear, a fear which is
statitistically irrational - Americans are more at risk on the roads round their
bases than in the capital. Yet Washington handed Al-Qaeda a free publicity coup
on a plate. It incidentally had every front page and every pub bar ranting about
cowardly Americans, jeering at the US Marines 'We are not afraid' website, which
adds 'We stand with our British brothers and sisters.'"
We are quite willing
to stand by our British brothers and sisters, as long as we can stand a good
safe distance and still do our shopping.
To me, the greatest insult to the
British and their losses was delivered today, all the more insulting because it
was thoughtless and unintentional.
I was watching the news of the two minutes
of silence held for the victims of the London bombings, a silent vigil held not
just in London but across
Europe.
"Britain's Queen Elizabeth stood in silence at Buckingham Palace.
In London's Trafalgar Square, a giant banner declared 'One City, One
World.'
"Taxis and buses pulled over, workers left their offices to stand in
the street and financial markets paused to remember the dead.
"In Italy,
government offices, railway stations and airports paused while television
stations cut into normal broadcasting to honour the London dead.
"In Paris,
President Jacques Chirac's annual Bastille day television address was put back
so the French could mark the moment. Chirac stood silent on the steps of the
Elysee Palace."
Has the United States or even simply Washington, DC held a
silent moment for the victims of the London bombings? Has any national gesture
of solidarity been proposed?
If so, I haven't seen or heard of it. We're
just going about our business while insisting that the world perpetually
acknowledge our scars and trauma from September 11th as our justification to
wage whatever aggressive action we deem necessary to ensure it never happens
again.
For months, we've been hearing and reading that Brits no longer
discriminate between average Americans and the policies of our government--that
the reelection of Bush has made them hold us in something of the same contempt
they hold him. Well, they have good reason, and we keep furnishing them with
better reasons all the time.

Since I couldn't have said it better, I will just sign myself- Embarrassed American