Actually, he was contrasting British and American politics. Anyone who has seen Tony Blair match wits with Parliament would have to agree that not very many American Presidents would do nearly as well. Maybe Clinton, but not Bush and certainly not Obama. Having said that, I don’t know where Cleese has been that he has not witnessed the disrespectful things said about President Bush. Has he never heard of BDS?
Anyway, here is a more complete excerpt of what Cleese said.
Cleese then continued to explore the cultural difference between the two countries: “If you get famous, people here get so respectful to you in this country. There’s a kind of reverence, which is quite sickening,” Cleese said. “In England, if you’re famous, everyone’s so envious. If you want to be really popular in England, you need to have a big public failure.”
Cleese then related this reverence to American politics: “The problem in America is that you have a head of state who’s also the top political guy.”
Cleese explained that in England, one can be quite rude to the prime minister without insulting the figure head of the nation, the Queen. Americans, on the other hand, are “much too respectful to the president,” said Cleese, who went on to say that George W. Bush would not be able to survive a single press conference in England.
“It’s pathetic!” he exclaimed. “This is the most important country in the world ... It’s embarrassing because we want America to be great. There is emotion when I said that that because in the 60s we looked up to the U.S. as a beacon, because it was a smart place.”
“Eight years of this rubbish,” he continued. “The Brits were asking, “where is the American’s sense of outrage?”
Whereas I think in Britain, people take the government much more seriously, and demand much more from it. They are conditioned to expecting government to be the solution. Unfortunately, it seems now we seem to be moving in that direction more than ever.