The inimitable Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, cuts to the chase over Obama’s dismissive perception of the Anglo-American relationship. What spurred his piece were the reports coming out of the UK of a rapidly growing disenchantment with Obama and his administration.
There have always been Brits like myself who felt in their bones that the man was an empty suit, a construct fashioned like the Edsel from a premise that customers would buy anything as long as the PR struck the right chords. But over the last few weeks a growing number of voices, once held in thrall by the Obama myth, have suddenly discovered that this latter day American Ozymandias has feet of clay.
These voices do not just come from those on the right (like Daniel Hannan and Boris Johnson) who should, by the very nature of their conservative DNA, have simply known better but also from certain elements in those bastions of leftist rectitude, the Guardian and the BBC.
The eye opener, of course, has been the odious posturing by the lightworker over the Gulf oil spill and the decision by him and his regime to deflect criticism of their own gross incompetence by demonising BP as if its executives were receiving psychic guidance from the shade of George III himself. But, as Hanson points out, this is merely the most recent manifestation of a long observed pattern of behaviour that fits neatly into the zeitgeist of Obama and the circles of the American left from which he sprang
To be fair, the miffed British are reacting to two years of both perceived and real slights from the Obama administration. Who does not know the familiar litany? There was the rude return of the magnificent Churchill bust. The asymmetrical gift exchange with Gordon Brown — at the end of a visit in which the president repeatedly snubbed the prime minister — and the banal choice of gift for the queen the following month revealed a certain symbolic spite on the administration’s part.
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Then there was Secretary Clinton’s unnecessary preemptory announcement of American neutrality in the next round of disputes over the Falklands. All this is topped off by the constant presidential trashing of “British Petroleum” and its mess in the Gulf, with the implication that a foreign interest perhaps does not care too much for a former colony’s ecology.
There has been some suggestion that Obama’s view of Britain has been coloured by the experiences of his grandfather in colonial Kenya where he was supposedly ill treated by British agents during the Mau Mau insurgency
I don’t buy that.
I tend to agree with Hanson that, like many on the left, Obama’s only interest in history is as a reservoir of grievance myths to buttress his own belief in the progressive agenda which seeks to construct a society of “new” men and women totally disconnected from the collective cultural inheritance of ages past.
What these curiously assorted places and people have in common is disdain for the Western tradition and, again, an unspoken dislike of Britain in particular. In such a network, one might hear of the Raj, of Mossadegh, of the Mau Mau revolt, but nothing of Magna Carta, the Scottish Enlightenment, the effort to stop Bonaparte, the terrible costs of defending liberal values against Prussian nationalism, Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism, and Stalinism, or the largely peaceful withdrawal from empire — or the unmatched insight of Milton, Shakespeare, Gibbon, and Dickens, or the genius of Hobbes, Hume, Locke, and Burke.
I have a deep affection for the USA and, over the last eighteen months blogging at C4P and elsewhere have made many American friends. That doesn’t mean to say I slavishly support everything the USA does. As in any relationship with friends or family I am sometimes critical of and irritated by America’s attitude and actions. But the roots of true friendship lie deep and cannot be upturned by ephemeral disagreements.
Former Clinton bagman James Rubin recently appeared on the BBC blathering some cant about how we Brits needed to develop a thicker skin over Obama’s grandstanding and the vomit inducing remarks of some members of Congress.
I don’t buy that, either.
I feel offended by Obama’s posturing as I read today how more British soldiers have died in Afghanistan fighting alongside Americans in a war that we entered without question after the bloody attack on the USA on 9/11. I take comfort from the assurances of American friends that Obama is not the voice of Real America, only of an alienated segment.
Above all Hanson’s final words brought me great comfort. I only hope and pray he is right.
Obamaism is, however, not quite yet typical of American thinking.
Most Americans, across racial and cultural lines, still revere our British connection. It is what helps to explain why we are more like successful Canada than failing Mexico, why we look back at our own sacrifices at the side of Britain in two world wars with pride rather than regret, and why, for all the petty squabbling and rivalries, we usually think we are doing something wrong when Britain is not our partner.
What explains the way American Revolution unfolded and the success that followed is not just the courage and brilliance of our Founding Fathers but also the fact that we were revolting against Britain and not an Ottoman Empire, Russia, or China. Americans usually understand that, and so we blend our pride in American exceptionalism with acknowledgment that its font was British law, government, and culture.
Even as America becomes an increasingly diverse society, even as our schools turn away from traditional learning, nevertheless millions of Americans still grasp why we owe so much to Britain — and why we must never endanger our singular friendship with it, the cornerstone of American foreign policy. Our president’s cavalier indifference to Britain reflects a strain in American life, but not American life per se. We may too often take Britain for granted, but we do so because our unspoken debt to it and our appreciation for it are part of our national fiber. Barack Obama cannot change that — as we will relearn either when he shows contrition, or at such time as he leaves office.
Amen to that…..
