Mark Steyn: Howard should start caring about Bush

According to The Sunday Telegraph, "Howard Tells Bush: I Don't Care If You Won't See Me". Presumably he didn't actually "tell" Bush, since his lack of access to the guy is what this thing's all about.

"Face time" they used to call it in Bill Clinton's day. So Bush is probably unaware that Howard doesn't care if he won't see him. By next Sunday we might be seeing headlines such as: "Furious Howard Slams Reeling Bush: I Don't Care If You Don't Know That I Don't Care If You Won't See Me".

But, despite the lively account in the Sun, I very much doubt Karl Rove told Michael Howard: "You can forget about meeting the President full stop." More likely he told him: "You can forget about meeting the President, period."

If you're going to leak highly confidential conversations, it helps not to make the poor chap sound like a character in one of Martin Amis's sad, trying-to-sound-American novels. We are, as has been noted, two nations separated by a common language.

Take - to pluck at random - the word "conservative". In America, "conservative" has certain common meanings: devotees of small government, gun nuts, fiscal hawks, anti-abortion groups, the religious Right. Bush is a problematic figure for several of these constituencies, but all of them are numerous and indispensable to the election prospects of the President, senators, governors, congressmen and state legislators.

Now turn to Britain. What does "conservative" mean? There's no religious Right or pro-life groups, not much social conservatism at all, and, if there was, the Tory leadership would recoil from it lest they offend shortlisted gay candidates with safe seats. There are no gun nuts, because the party has a rather unpleasant authoritarian bent and has traditionally eschewed the Englishman's-home-is-his-castle stuff in favour of a knee-jerk deference to the monumentally useless British constabulary. (Howard's time as Home Secretary makes an instructive study in this regard.)

As for fiscal conservatism and small government, the Tories are against "waste" and in favour of "choice", but so's everybody else, at least rhetorically.

So what does "conservative" mean in British English? If you look it up in the OED, does it say "obs."? Last-known citation, by Toby Helm in The Daily Telegraph, August 7, 2004: "Senior members of Michael Howard's frontbench team believe the Conservative Party will have to consider changing its name as part of a fundamental `rebranding'."

Whoa, not so fast. Despite the great gaping nullity of the party this past decade, there was still one thing it stood for: like the Republicans, the Tories were the party that took foreign policy and national security seriously. That's what Howard threw away when he chose to repudiate his own Iraq-war vote, accuse Blair of "dereliction of duty" and demand his resignation.

In America, plenty of old-school "realist" Republicans were sceptical of the war. So were various self-important Brits, on the grounds that the blundering Yanks just don't understand the natives the way we old colonial hands do - an argument that would be more persuasive if so many of the trouble spots currently requiring America's attention weren't assisted on their path to chronic dysfunctionalism by the wise old birds of British imperialism (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan).

But Howard went further than either the realpolitik or snob crowd. For crudely opportunist reasons, he jumped in one swift move from bipartisan support of the Government in a time of war to bipartisan support of loony-Left sloganeering against the war.

He embraced in all but name the BLAIR LIED!! PEOPLE DIED!!! school of foreign policy. Granted, he's not the only Tory to have done so. I'm often asked by disbelieving Republicans these days if it's true about Britain's "Michael Moore Conservatives". Hard to disagree when I see my increasingly deranged chums at The Spectator are now calling for Blair's impeachment. This is frivolous and unworthy of a serious opposition.

If you look at all this from the White House's perspective, it's easy to see why the Administration has dismissed the Tories, according to the Sun, as "a bunch of wankers". At first glance this, too, is an unlikely formulation from Texan lips. But I'm prepared to believe that, if one expression from the Berlitz Guide to Useful Phrases about the British Conservative Party has crossed the Atlantic and penetrated the Oval Office, it's probably this one.

It's often said that, whoever's elected, the Anglo-American relationship endures: Bush-Blair, Kerry-Howard, it makes no difference. That's not how Bush looks at it. He sees the war on terror as a struggle requiring enormous will, particularly when the default mode of fashionable transnationalism apropos anything difficult is to wait till it's too late and then issue a statement of concern (see Sudan).

To Bush, Blair is a man who was prepared to face down his own party and some tough poll numbers to do the right thing. I'm not saying he thinks Howard's an unprincipled squish who reads the polls and does a U-turn just so he can join the pointless oppositionism of the Blair-bashing stampede but, if you were Bush, would you want to risk it?

The words of another Howard are pertinent here: "This is no time to be an 80 per cent ally," said Australia's John Howard after 9/11. What percentage would you place the Michael Howard Tories at?

The damage to Republican-Tory relationships isn't the point: after all, you can't build bridges when one bank is crumbling into the river. It's the damage to the Tory party's identity. When you stand for nothing saleable that New Labour hasn't shamelessly appropriated, and when new parties are siphoning off votes on your Right, how stupid do you have to be to kick away the party's last remaining leg, the one that still seems relevant to the world we live in? If the Conservatives are no longer credible on foreign policy, what's left?

Or, as Toby Helm reported: "Among the alternative names that Tory modernisers are floating in private are the Democrats, the New Democrats, Progress." The first is the name of the US Left-of-centre party, the second is the Canadian socialist party, and the third could be anything, though it carries the vague whiff of a 1930s Mitteleuropean fascist movement.

Given that the Tories' identity is notable mainly by its absence, wouldn't it be easiest just to change the name to the Not The Conservative Party?

an argument that would be more persuasive if so many of the trouble spots currently requiring America's attention weren't assisted on their path to chronic dysfunctionalism by the wise old birds of British imperialism (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan).

Bears repeating.

3 posted on 08/30/2004 4:15:21 PM PDT by dfwgator (It's sad that the news media treats Michael Jackson better than our military.)

Oh for the days of Margaret Thatcher. Her law that government should not promote homosexual activity made perfect sense and was eminently reasonable and objective. The government should be neutral on that topic. A pity is was repealed.

And don't even get me started on the messes the French have left behind.

5 posted on 08/30/2004 4:16:37 PM PDT by dfwgator (It's sad that the news media treats Michael Jackson better than our military.)

Mark Steyn is the geezer. His columns should be syndicated on every publication in the English-speaking world.

Given that the Tories' identity is notable mainly by its absence, wouldn't it be easiest just to change the name to the Not The Conservative Party?

One hopes they won't get the chance to have to deal with
President I'm NOT George Bush.

Although it would probably serve them right.

7 posted on 08/30/2004 4:22:42 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)

The Tories are a bunch of wankers. It's difficult to find many sane "conservative" parties in European politics anymore. I still have hope for the Christian Democrats in Germany, but just consider that Jacques Chirac represents what passes for the "conservative" party in France.

So were various self-important Brits, on the grounds that the blundering Yanks just don't understand the natives the way we old colonial hands do - an argument that would be more persuasive if so many of the trouble spots currently requiring America's attention weren't assisted on their path to chronic dysfunctionalism by the wise old birds of British imperialism (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan).

Yes, I've noticed that.

I don't care if he doesn't care if he doesn't know that he doesn't care if he won't see him.

10 posted on 08/30/2004 4:29:51 PM PDT by Samwise (John Kerry is a pseudo-French elitist, ketchup-swigging gigolo, wannabe-hero, billionaire doofus.)

11 posted on 08/30/2004 4:30:11 PM PDT by GretchenM (A country is a terrible thing to waste. Vote Republican.)

But, despite the lively account in the Sun, I very much doubt Karl Rove told Michael Howard: "You can forget about meeting the President full stop." More likely he told him: "You can forget about meeting the President, period."

Pokey, I just finished Lynn Truss's "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" about punctuation. I wouldn't have got this play on words without the read. Thanks again!

I've just read a positive review of Steyn's new book, "From Head to Toe." It points out that he is published in the Atlantic, Spectator, National Review, New York Sun, Irish Times, Washington Times, Western Standard (Canada), the New Criterion, and Wall Street Journal, etc. The guy is (1) amazing, (2) on our side, and (3) his hobby is dog sledding.

To: Pokey78; Forgiven_Sinner; Constitution Day; Eurotwit; free me; Tolik; Slings and Arrows; Cicero; ...

I'm not saying he thinks Howard's an unprincipled squish who reads the polls and does a U-turn just so he can join the pointless oppositionism of the Blair-bashing stampede but, if you were Bush, would you want to risk it?

Thanks for the ping Pokey. A day without a FULL Steyn is a day without sardonic laughter.

FMCDH(BITS)

15 posted on 08/30/2004 5:02:53 PM PDT by nothingnew (KERRY: "If at first you don't deceive, lie, lie again!")

Okay, since I've just finished a column that's partly about language differences "across the pond," can I ask what "geezer" means to you? In the U.S. it's an old, boring person who won't stop talking.

And welcome to FR, by the way. We're all happy to welcome a new freeper, especially one from such a wonderful ally of the US.

Great book if you get a chance to read it. Full of classic Steyn covering everything from politics to popular entertainment.

Mark Steyn should be required reading in the Public School systems from the 5th grade onward.

Given that the Tories' identity is notable mainly by its absence, wouldn't it be easiest just to change the name to the Not The Conservative Party?

Nope. That opens up the possibility of someone else having the Not as Conservative as the Not the Conservative Party party, and then where are you?

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