http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 83,00.html
Blair, bane of euroweenies and American superhero
David Brooks
The Prime Minister will find himself the most popular man in Washington today
Every few days, I get a Blairogram. Some American journalist, policy analyst or White House staffer will send out a mass e-mail citing some marvellous thing Tony Blair has just said in Parliament, at a press conference or during a policy speech. The quotation is always some effective argument that Blair has just made in favour of regime change in Iraq, and then the e-mailer will add some cheerleading comment, which is the white wonk’s equivalent of black gospel call and response:
“You getting it said, preacher! Shout it out, brother, shout it out!” We Americans of the hawkish variety love our Blairograms. Our own national leader is fine with the big policy set speeches, delivered at the rough frequency of the seasonal equinoxes. Between these he does not exactly excel at the cut and thrust of argument. But Blair does. And what is more, while Bush has a comfortable chorus of thinkers, foreign policy johnnies and even Democratic hawks behind him, Blair delivers his arguments into the teeth of The Guardian, the BBC and all those dreadful unilateral disarmament types we remember from the Cold War.
No wonder we swoon at the mere mention of his name. “It’s because he’s religious,” we tell each other at cocktail parties. But that does not quite get at the real reason so many Americans love Blair, and it does not quite capture the position Britain now occupies in the American mind.
Mr Blair’s critics accuse him of being a US toady. But that is not at all the way he is perceived in America. If it were, we would have vague contempt for him, his Government and his nation. There is not a hint of that on this side of the Atlantic.
Instead we are more likely to see Blair as the man who delivers periodic seriousness injections into the American body politic. Americans would just as soon like to retreat from international affairs to the splendour of their McMansions and their bison-sized patio grills. The American leadership class can be counted upon to be serious about foreign affairs for three-day spurts before retreating into months-long bouts of obliviousness. But then, just as the forces of triviality are about to overwhelm us, along comes a statement of determination and resolve from Blair.
This has cemented Britain’s reputation as the nation of fortitude, steadfastness and will. When it comes to world affairs, Britain’s image is no longer dominated by Eden and Heath. Mention of the UK no longer calls to mind visions of impotence and decline. Rather, Britain is seen as the nation of Churchill’s indomitable resistance to the Nazis, Margaret Thatcher’s “Don’t go wobbly, George” and Blair’s gutsy and unfashionable resolve.
What we see when we look across the Atlantic is a Great Britain that has its share of euroweenies, but which also produces strong leaders who prove their mettle by fighting foes in their own nation and who are then able to project that strength around the world. It is now a subject of Washington dinner party conversation: how is it that the Brits manage to produce such strong leaders? Theories abound. They may no longer have an empire, but they still possess the habit of leadership. Their educational system still instructs them in the classical virtues. Unlike some other European nations, public debate is not dominated by a small elite of greying 1968 nostalgics. Discussion about Europe and other matters is populist and free-flowing. The tabloids keep alive a straightforward patriotic impulse. Thus, the leadership class has not become entirely pacifistic, as in Germany, or self-absorbed and treacherous, as in France.
George W. Bush saluted Tony Blair during one of his previous congressional addresses and saluted Britain as our best friend in Europe. I would have loved to have been in our embassies in Berlin and Paris when he made that statement. They must have been spitting up their Courvoisiers. But the only real surprise is that Bush came to the realisation so quickly.
Usually Presidents come to the White House believing that Germany is our closest ally in Europe. It is only under the pressure of events that they come to see that British leaders are more inclined to see the world the way we do.
This shift in political perceptions has accompanied a broader shift of cultural perceptions. It is easy to see how American perceptions of Britain were shaped in the 1970s by Monty Python skits and Upstairs, Downstairs: that Britain was a nation that had once been great and worth telling stories about, but which had become the land of upper-class twits and pompous sociologists. Now, however, we live in the age of Austin Powers, Harry Potter and Tony Blair, and suddenly the place seems courageous again. Those new Labour efforts to rebrand Britain may have been ridiculed in London but over here, where rebranding is a way of life, they were taken as an admirable, if charmingly shallow, effort to shake off the encrustations of the decline years.
And so no less a cultural arbiter than our own Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has included Britain, by implication, in the realm of “New Europe”. He probably should not have said what many of us believe, which is that a new Europe, with vibrant labour markets, high growth potential and inspiring futures, is growing up around the Old Europe, which generally lacks those things. If you were a young American entrepreneur, where would you go? Warsaw, Prague or London; or Berlin or Paris? The answer is obvious.
All of which adds up to a striking cultural turnaround. Maybe we are wrong about Britain. Perhaps we lack the requisite cynicism to see Blair and his nation in its true light. But when he cruises through Washington today, he will find himself just about the most admired and appreciated person in town.
