Iain Murray has printed a letter from a British Conservative friend of his that is, to put it mildly, critical of American maintenance of the "special relationship" between London and Washington. The White House, writes the friend in one magmatic passage, is "willing to see us sold down the river to a bunch of cod-socialist Euro fanatics." Murray turns to readers: what do Americans take from this?
Well. Murray's friend's lamentation comes off like that of a typical postmodernist, to wit, "What's in it for us?" Her charge of diminution is curious, considering the documented volume of Tory contempt for policies of the American right, notably martial assertion in the war and democratization. Most tendentious is the depiction of the prime minister as a "toady." Which wing of the alliance was it, Anglo or American, that insisted on hanging in for a final, vain round of Security Council negotiations in early 2003, paring the indictment of Saddam Hussein for the sake of votes from Ba'athist Baghdad's most loyal Franco-Russo trade partners? Which wing had the power to refuse to go along, but instead deferred to the other out of respect?
The friend means well, I am sure, but we have here a backbencher screed and little else.
Related thought: America is an earnest belle, broad-faced and winsome. England is her cleverly waspish savant friend who plays foil when the suitors come.