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Who actually invited Bush to Britain?
Guardian ^ | 11/12/03 | Jonathan Freedland

Posted on 11/11/2003 8:02:29 PM PST by Pikamax

So who did invite him?

George Bush's visit is a nightmare for Tony Blair - but not for the White House, which badly wanted it

Jonathan Freedland Wednesday November 12, 2003 The Guardian

We all know the feeling. You glance at the diary and realise you have guests coming to stay next week, when nothing could be less convenient. They're coming from abroad, expecting to be entertained for several days and it's far too late to cancel. This is the last thing you need. So spare a thought for Tony Blair, as he scans the calendar and sighs. There are the dates, circled and unyielding: November 18 to 21 - Bush in Britain. He knows what it will mean. His guest is the most unpopular US president in living memory. The anti-war movement will be back on the march, gearing up for its biggest outing since it brought up to 2 million Britons onto the streets in February. Blair will have to make yet more speeches like the one at Guildhall on Monday, once again defending the war on Iraq. And for a fortnight, starting now, all eyes will focus not on the domestic agenda by which his government will eventually be judged, but on the matter which has brought him greatest grief since taking office.

A Times poll yesterday found half the public regard Blair's closeness to George Bush as bad for Britain; next week will show the two of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder, in coverage that will be wall-to-wall. Blair must want to shout up the stairs to Cherie: "I never wanted him to come here in the first place. Whose bloody idea was this?"

As well he might ask. For no one seems ready to own up to this particular invitation. "It came up as a matter of routine," says a Foreign Office spokesman, "all American presidents get them in their first term." Except Bush's trip can hardly be described as routine. He will be the first US president to come here on a state visit - with all the extra lashings of ceremony and royal red carpet that that term implies. (There was big hoopla for Woodrow Wilson in 1918 but even that, the protocol experts say, did not quite count.) Working visits are common enough, but a royal welcome is not given easily: Bill Clinton had to wait till his final month in office before he had an invitation to take tea at Buckingham Palace. Bush will be staying there as a house guest.

So how did it happen? The Foreign Office suggests a call to the palace, who promptly insist this was not their doing. "This whole visit is being done with advice - with a capital A," says a palace spokeswoman firmly. The royal family did not do this on their own; government was involved. The two sides cannot even agree on when this wizard idea first surfaced. The Foreign Office says it was settled in June 2002; the palace and US embassy say the first they heard of it was early this year.

All of which makes you wonder if even the hosts are getting cold feet. You can hardly blame them. For who does this trip really benefit? Not Blair, who's getting a headache he could do without. Not the Queen, who has an allergy to political controversy and, given recent events, can hardly be eager to see her already beleaguered institution tarred by association with the "toxic Texan".

No, there is only one beneficiary of this visit and it is the Bush White House. With an election campaign looming, they are anxious to deflect the accusation that Bush is isolated. They want to show he has allies and friends around the world and few play better in the US than Tony Blair, whose American ratings put his home numbers in the shade.

That explains why Bush is keen to be seen with the PM, but not why he might want the full flummery of a state visit. A clue can be found in the text studied more closely than any other by the political operatives in the Bush White House: the campaign to re-elect Ronald Reagan in 1984. That made heavy use of TV footage which cast Reagan as a statesman, at home across the globe. A favourite sequence showed the president and the Queen on horseback in Windsor Great Park during his 1982 visit. The Bush team want some royal shots like that of their own. Apparently they were particularly keen on an open-carriage procession down the Mall, and are said to be disheartened by London's suggestion that that might not be possible due to "security".

One Republican source, close to the White House, has a theory as to why the Queen is such an important catch for the image makers. "Look, Americans don't know shit. They're not going to recognise the prime minister of the Philippines. The only foreign leaders they could pick out are the Queen of England and the Pope - and we've already got those pictures." With the Pontiff in the can, the Queen is the co-star the president needs.

Getting the first ever state visit for a US president was a big request, but Team Bush had just the man to make it. William Farish, the US ambassador to London, has been the invisible man of the diplomatic circuit since he arrived here. But he has one asset: he is a genuinely close friend of the Windsors. A racing fanatic, he even trains and keeps the Queen's horses at his Kentucky estate.

According to this version, it is Washington, not London, which is driving next week's visit. Even the timing is designed to suit them: late November is the run-up to Thanksgiving, with Congress due to be in recess and a convenient drought of rival news. They could not wait till next year, when the election campaign will be at full throttle, and when foreign jaunts risk Bush Snr Syndrome - spending too much time abroad when Americans want their president to fix things at home. Next week is the time that best suits the Republican re-election effort, so that is the week he is coming. My Republican source detects the hand of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political counsellor: "Rove is driving the timing and image-making of all this."

If this is the White House's thinking, some UK government officials wonder if they might have blundered. The best pictures from next week may be of a giant Bush statue being toppled, Saddam style, in Trafalgar Square. If rioters on heat, rather than a president on horseback, is the defining image of the visit, won't that be a failure? Not necessarily. So long as the protesters look like the usual suspects - multiply pierced, Genoa-style activists in torn clothes and mohican haircuts - then, I'm told, the White House will not worry. They will be able to say Bush enjoys the global support of all but a few anarchist weirdos. If the demonstrators look like the UK equivalent of America's "soccer moms", regular people of all ages, including plenty of women - tricky to bring out on a weekday - then Washington may have to rethink.

It seems incredible that the White House could breezily decide to use Britain as a backdrop for a glorified ad campaign - and be granted its wish. The government insists it really wants this visit, that a relationship with the sole superpower cannot be taken for granted, but has to be, in Jack Straw's words, "maintained and nurtured".

But this seems a stretch. If Britain, which continues to lose soldiers in Iraq, and Blair, who has put his entire prime ministership in jeopardy, have not already done enough to maintain and nurture this relationship, then what kind of relationship is this?

j.freedland@guardian.co.uk


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: antiamericanism; antibush; barfalert; bush43; bushbashing; mediabias; redstarguardian; smarmyliberal; uk; ukvisit
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To: Burkeman1
To All: Was Reagan really hated just as much by the peons of Europe as Bush seems to be?
41 posted on 11/11/2003 9:08:11 PM PST by Democratshavenobrains
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To: APFel
OH- I think I will be hear long after you. Have a nice night.
42 posted on 11/11/2003 9:08:19 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: goodnesswins
Perhaps you should use a grammar checker.

From those of us who are spelling challenged and who are also off the grammar reservation, I say cut the Burkeman a little slack. He articulates a libertarian foreign policy point of view that needs to be heard on these threads. As events in the war against terrorism unfold, his ruthlessly pro American anti neo-con perspective has not lost credibility.

Living in Germany, I see the condesenscion against Bush almost daily. I believe he will ultimately be vindicated, but only by a minority of fair-minded people who care about such things and who think about them a generation later. Reagan remains a cowboy in the thinking of most Europeans - when they think about him.

43 posted on 11/11/2003 9:18:30 PM PST by nathanbedford (qqua)
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To: Democratshavenobrains
Reagan always had 40 to 50 percent approval ratings even when he was deploying the Minetaman medium range missles in Western Europe. There were massive protests against Reagan but the Cold War Coalition held togetherer!.

But in this BS Iraq war, Not one real ally would side with us other than our hip- Britain- and our recent biatches- called Poland.
44 posted on 11/11/2003 9:21:34 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: Pikamax
At least the Prez has the good sense to not meet with Prince Fandango.
45 posted on 11/11/2003 9:28:43 PM PST by cookcounty
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To: Burkeman1
The only land worth fighting for is your own. Not because I say so but because it is human nature. All successful coalitions of nations from the Greek City states (the first of its kind) to NATO (pre Kosovo) were motivated by this human condition. All "liberation theologies" (except that of Islam) have failed to convert any nation into the mold of their liberators.
46 posted on 11/11/2003 9:31:35 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorisim by visiting www.johnathangaltfilms.com)
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To: Pikamax
His guest is the most unpopular US president in living memory.

With whom? The socialists? GOOD!

47 posted on 11/11/2003 9:32:42 PM PST by FrogMom
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To: Destro
I had posted on this site months before the Iraq war that the Bush administration was going into Iraq to make the Islamic world "safe for Democracy" and I was assailed and confronted by those who believed it was about WMD's. Two days ago Bush makes a speech about how we are in Iraq to bring democracy to the region and the same posters who lambasted me and others are now claiming that was his intention all along!



48 posted on 11/13/2003 2:29:37 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: Pikamax
Oh, for goodness sake. This guy is certainly beside himself.

Poor baby.

His "sources", hm? They all sound so credible! NOT
49 posted on 11/13/2003 2:39:39 PM PST by cyncooper
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To: Burkeman1
Dr. Rice Briefs on the President's Trip to the UK
Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice on the President's Trip to the United Kingdom
The James S. Brady Briefing Room
November 13, 2003

1:08 P.M. EST

DR. RICE: Good afternoon. I've got a couple of comments, and then I'll be happy to take your questions. First, I'm going to give you a brief overview of the President's schedule for the state visit to the United Kingdom.

At the invitation of Her Majesty The Queen, the President will travel to the United Kingdom to affirm the broad and historic alliance shared by the United States and Great Britain. The depth of the special relationship between our two countries cannot be overstated. The United States has no greater friend. We share common interests, a common history and common values. Primarily, the United Kingdom and the United States share the desire to support all of those who seek freedom, democracy and peace. It is that tie that binds us inextricably.


################################


Condi said it. I believe it. That settles it.

50 posted on 11/13/2003 7:00:38 PM PST by rogue yam
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To: rogue yam
And will Bush II do a scenic tour of London Streets? Like other Presidents? Will he do a public speech? No? Why not? Because he he is hated. He is hated in Europe and this will be the most stage managed event that Freepers once took delight in picking apart!
51 posted on 11/13/2003 7:27:33 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: Burkeman1
So many men who want to kill people they never saw before from thousands of feet up! I thank God I wasn't one of them.
52 posted on 11/13/2003 7:38:13 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: Burkeman1
Bush is hated by some in Europe and not hated by others. Just like here. Bush is not hated by the Queen nor by Tony Blair. The rest can sod off. I used to worry when it seemed that most everyone else didn't understand things as well as I did. Then by about the third week of first grade or so I got used to it. Ever since then I have had little use for people who seek affirmation in the howls of the great masses of the excited ignorant.
53 posted on 11/13/2003 7:45:08 PM PST by rogue yam
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To: rogue yam
What three things most matter to you?
54 posted on 11/13/2003 7:47:51 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: rogue yam
Searching the internet for those things? You can't answer like a man?
55 posted on 11/13/2003 7:51:36 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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To: Burkeman1
Dude! I don't know what you're talking about. Are you drunk again?
56 posted on 11/13/2003 8:38:46 PM PST by rogue yam
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To: rogue yam
Yes sir- but still make more sense than you.
57 posted on 11/13/2003 9:12:24 PM PST by Burkeman1 ((If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.))
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