Posted on 08/30/2004 4:13:24 PM PDT by Pokey78
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?
We started here in the 4th grade. Makes things much easier; I don't have to tell my daughter to laugh at the 'unbiased' media, she does it all on her own.
It's important to point out that the MSM has a LIBERAL agenda.
To think of discovering it at 10 years old makes me smile.
Cheers!
Even for the young, it can be hard to miss. One of my earlier memories is of watching the news, with Dan Rather reporting on the Vietnam war. I turned to my father and said, "Wow! That guy really doesn't like America, does he?"
He's never done anything in the years in between to change that opinion, either.
New Labour has its loony Left but I hazard a guess the Blair Labourites would have no trouble finding a home in the U.S Republican Party. I just don't see Brits voting for the loonier Democrats, a splinter Lefty faction of Labour or for the In Name Only Tories.
<< .... 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. [Just for starters: -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan]
Scratch an anywhere-in-the-world problem and find the corrupt and/or murderous surrogate detritus of once-great-british and/or other dead-and-decadent euro-peon failure!
<< "Among the alternatives Tories ... are floating in private are "the Democrats," the "New Democrats" and "Progress."
The first is the name of the US Left-of-centre party, the second is the Canadian socialist party, and the third .... 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? >>
Thus does Mr Steyn succinctly synopsize all that is rotten -- and not just with Howards tories [For the great majority of Blair's Socialists are far more rotten that Howard's drivilling dribling dopes!] -- in once-great british politics.
As for a new name for that sorry supercilious shower of ... um ... losers?
How's about the incrementalist-socialists?
Thanks for the ping, Pokes.
BUMPping
At least Tony Blair had a sense of history and stood beside us on Iraq, against popular opinion in his country. The french actively opposed us on Vietnam.
Could I not bump a Steyn post. Hah!
Damned Canadians. ;-)
bttt
William Hague was England's only chance.
That's a very glib thing to say if you consider that three quarters of the globe was at some time under British control. And, leaving aside such issues as whether the British Empire was a civilising influence or otherwise, whether these now "chronically dysfunctional" countries were havens of enlightenment and tolerance before being brutally crushed by British Imperial Fascists, what exactly is his point here? Is he saying that these countries are in the mess they are in now as a result of British non-interventionism? Or is he talking out of his arse? If he wants to make such comparisons he should wait another four hundred years for the effects of current American foreign policy to fully develop.
and the third .... carries the vague whiff of a 1930s Mitteleuropean fascist movement.
It does. And it's also the name of the looniest Left party, the junior member of the country's coalition government. Apropos, it is represented in New Zealand parliament by 2 (two) MPs, both of them ministers.
The Brits were not alone in departing from their colonies, leaving behind artificial borders comprising groups of people who were not prepared to live compatibly together, but they might have invented the tactic.
I have heard that the Tories are dead in the UK, but Steyn, as usual, explains why. What a teacher he is.
BTW, Freepers picked up on "wankers" several years ago, but I cannot remember the context in which it came to fame here. Do you remember?
Michael Howard
White House bans British Opposition leader
30.08.2004
LONDON - British Conservative leader Michael Howard has accused President George W. Bush of trying to protect British Prime Minister Tony Blair in an extraordinary row sparked by news that the Tory leader has been banned from the White House...
How about "The Standining-in-the-Back-Dressed-Funny-and-Looking-Stupid-Party"?
It's far too early in the morning to be alive.
TORY leader Michael Howard has been barred from the White House
The SUN ^ | 08/27/04 | TREVOR KAVANAGH
Posted on 08/27/2004 7:49:05 PM PDT by Pikamax
Bush: Stay away Howard
By TREVOR KAVANAGH Political EditorTORY leader Michael Howard has been barred from the White House and told he will never meet President George Bush, it emerged last night.The bombshell ban was slapped on Mr Howard after he called for Tony Blair to quit over the Iraq War.
And it was reinforced last month when he said he would have vetoed military action if he had known the full facts about Iraq’s WMD arsenal.
Last night, a spokesman for Mr Howard did not even try to deny the Tory leader had been banned from meeting the President.
He said: “I don’t want to comment on that.”
The wrath of the President was transmitted to Mr Howard’s office in a furious phone call from White House political chief Karl Rove in February.
It followed Mr Howard’s call for Mr Blair to step down as PM.
What particularly upset the White House was Mr Howard’s comment: “If I were Prime Minister I would seriously be considering my position.”
They were also angered when the Tory leader accused the PM of “serious dereliction of duty”.
Mr Rove, who speaks with the President’s full authority, said: “You can forget about meeting the President full stop. Don’t bother coming, you are not meeting him.”The conversation was relayed to Mr Howard who was unmoved.Far from backing down, a defiant Mr Howard stepped up his attack over the so-called “dodgy dossier” and the 45-minute warning of attack by Iraqi WMD.
Referring to Tory support for the Commons vote which led to war, he said: “If I knew then what I know now, I could not have voted for the resolution.”
His comment to the Sunday Times was widely seen as an unforced error.
But it now emerges that Mr Howard was accurately reflecting his criticism not just of Mr Blair but of Mr Bush as well.
His stand shook top Tories, including party chairman Liam Fox who is flying to New York in a bid to patch up the rift at the Republican convention.
Anger ... President Bush
And it has deeply damaged the decades-long alliance between the Republicans and the Conservative Party.
Senior US Right-wingers blame Mr Howard for undermining the coalition in Iraq and say they are privately rooting for a Labour victory in the next election.
A Tory source said: “They see Tony Blair as a true ally against terror and the Tories as a bunch of w*****s.”
The stand-off is particularly surprising in view of Mr Howard’s long standing admiration for America.
He set up the Atlantic Partnership, a think-tank which welcomes regular visits from Republican figures.
Senior Tories are amazed that the White House fury has remained a secret for so long.
One said: “I am astonished it hasn’t come out before.”
But Mr Howard’s spokesman insisted he had not been barred from the Republican Convention.
He added: “He never intended to attend the convention.”
The revelations could not have come at a worse time for the Tories.
A new poll showed them still scoring only 34 per cent, the same as Labour, with little prospect of a breakthrough...
CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread
<< BTW, Freepers picked up on "wankers" several years ago, but I cannot remember the context in which it came to fame here. >>
It happened when a self-styled "conservative" coterie of dole-bludging lay-about Limeys began posting here -- and all soon revealed themselves to be unrestrained wankers!
A couple, mainly to supercilliously demonstrate the gross inferiority of their dead and decadent euro-trash culture, total lack of ideas and/or -- in the case of at least one of them -- to troll for virtual 'romance,' still persist.
Wankers!
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