The first Bush-Brown meeting

[Ferrus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6922840.stm

This is an interesting article, behind the rhetoric there does seem a discernible shift in the fact that there was an 'argument'. It seems Brown is going to shift responsibility for what he really wants to do - withdraw from Iraq - to parliament. I wonder if Labour MPs will be given a free vote, if they are it is not inconceivable that British troops will pull out entirely early 2008. And I wonder how this bodes for the future Anglo-American relations.

There does seem a personality split between Bush and Brown - much as Clinton and Major never got on - especially after it emerged that the Tories were giving the Republicans details on Clinton's doings during his time at Oxford - but that was only a temporary rupture. I think whether there is a long term change in bilateral relations (as there has been between the US and France, Russia and Germany) will depend on who assumes the presidency in 2008, and who wins the election here in '08 or '09.

[omnirook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6922840.stm

This is an interesting article, behind the rhetoric there does seem a discernible shift in the fact that there was an 'argument'. It seems Brown is going to shift responsibility for what he really wants to do - withdraw from Iraq - to parliament. I wonder if Labour MPs will be given a free vote, if they are it is not inconceivable that British troops will pull out entirely early 2008. And I wonder how this bodes for the future Anglo-American relations.

There does seem a personality split between Bush and Brown - much as Clinton and Major never got on - especially after it emerged that the Tories were giving the Republicans details on Clinton's doings during his time at Oxford - but that was only a temporary rupture. I think whether there is a long term change in bilateral relations (as there has been between the US and France, Russia and Germany) will depend on who assumes the presidency in 2008, and who wins the election here in '08 or '09.

The UK has gotten quite lucky if the UK has gotten a prime minister who understands that the UK can and will survive w/o playing toady to the US. The UK has every right to look after its own interests - which lie in a close relationship w/Europe, which lie in a close relationship w/the Commonwealth. The UK has benefitted from its close ties to America - but that was when America was behaving sanely, not insanely. Why must the UK allow itself to be pulled apart to please a moron who is despised by his own people?

If Gordon Brown is a typical Scot, then, no, he and Bush are not set to get along very well. The Scots have not won a reputation as bankers for nothing - bankers must be staid and upright and beyond reproach. Also, I've yet to meet a Scot who was able to play toady to anybody - they talk to everyone as though he were an equal, which would grate on Bush's nerves no end.

At the moment, I am leaning toward the idea that Edwards will emerge as the Democratic candidate. I think that Brown will be able to deal w/Edwards. Yes, Clinton and Obama are the current front runners. But America is still America - neither a woman nor a black man is going to get the nomination, not if the Democrats are serious about winning the White House. Maybe they are not - after all, whoever gets in will have the Bush mess on his plate. Maybe the idea will be to force the Republicans to raise taxes, force the Republicans to balance the budget, force the Republicans to play nice w/the rest of the world. The Democrats have been more comfortable w/the legislature than the executive for decades.

[Ferrus]

Interesting that you say America won't accept a woman - Britain in 1979 was very traditional (especially compared with today) and yet they seemed to accept a woman as leader.

As for Brown, well he refused to compliment Bush in the same way he had complimented him. That must rankle.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/gordon_brown_usa_07/

This low-level feud between Nick Robinson and Bush amuses me.

[C.J.Woolf]

Interesting that you say America won't accept a woman - Britain in 1979 was very traditional (especially compared with today) and yet they seemed to accept a woman as leader.
From what I've seen, it's easier for a woman to win a parliamentary election for prime minister than to win a popular election for president. MPs know the candidate and her qualities very well. I assume they want to vote for the best candidate regardless of gender because they have a big stake in who wins. The masses are less savvy and more likely to vote according to their attitudes toward women in general.

[Ferrus]

From what I've seen, it's easier for a woman to win a parliamentary election for prime minister than to win a popular election for president. MPs know the candidate and her qualities very well. I assume they want to vote for the best candidate regardless of gender because they have a big stake in who wins. The masses are less savvy and more likely to vote according to their attitudes toward women in general.
Perhaps - however in 1979 people still voted for the Conservatives, knowing well that should they win a woman would be Prime Minister. All the evidence suggests that the vast majority of electors vote for a government and not their individual MP, unless there has been dramatic local events.

[C.J.Woolf]

Perhaps - however in 1979 people still voted for the Conservatives, knowing well that should they win a woman would be Prime Minister.
Good point. I still can't get around the fact that it's devilishly hard for a woman to win a nationwide election. I wonder what study has been done on the question. Do people in parliamentary democracies support parties more than candidates? Or are conservatives (lower case) more party-oriented? As in, if Thatcher is good enough for the Tory party then she must be good enough for me.

[sorabji_66]

The masses are less savvy and more likely to vote according to their attitudes toward women in general.



such an honour to be on a board with someone who is so above the masses.

when you are at a public function that the masses may be at, do you insist on an extra chair in order to seat your superior intellect and ways?

[omnirook]

Perhaps - however in 1979 people still voted for the Conservatives, knowing well that should they win a woman would be Prime Minister. All the evidence suggests that the vast majority of electors vote for a government and not their individual MP, unless there has been dramatic local events.

I don't know about the UK, but in the States, a constant joke was that Thatcher was a man in drag. The "Iron Maiden" might have been a woman, but she worked hard to show that she could act like a man - or what a man was taken to be 3 decades ago, especially in an essentially conservative country like the UK. Here, we have had few prominent women office holders. Some, yes - but never in a position such as president (not that there is a position such as president, other than president). 2 female secretaries of state may help - but their positions were not their own; the secretary of state is an appointee. Albright turned out to be a closeted Jew, which caused a foment when it came out (of course, she had no idea, of course), and the other is a black woman who is rumored to be Bush's mistress. Perhaps those facts put a brake on the help. We'll see ... I wouldn't mind Hillary Clinton for president. It's just that I don't think that it will happen. Were she to become president, it would be an unmatchable first: former first lady twice over (govenor's wife, president's wife), junior US Senator for the State of New York, then - president. That would take a spot in Guinness that nobody could top. She's the first former first lady ever to be elected to an office of her own. But that was in New York, not Mississippi - or Georgia - or Texas, which at least had a female govenor (Ann Richards) ... I still think that Edwards will wind up w/the nomination. Yes, he's trailing - but nobody has had to go into a booth and pull the lever in a primary yet.

[omnirook]

such an honour to be on a board with someone who is so above the masses.

when you are at a public function that the masses may be at, do you insist on an extra chair in order to seat your superior intellect and ways?

He can read and write and put a sentence together and even observe the standard grammar and punctuation for putting sentences together. That and that alone separates him from the "masses." ... Why is it offensive to speak of the masses? Surely you do not believe that the public is anything other than a rounded-up and shoved about herd? Senior gave us his idea of being at one w/the masses - he ate pork rinds. That's a lot more than Junior has done, despite his feats of tumble-weed whacking and his golf-cart antics. I suppose that he would shove Queen Elizabeth into a golf-cart - or the Pope. Why not? He made Gordon Brown ride in one. I don't want a "good ol' boy" in the White House. I want somebody who can be respected outside of this country. Serving the British Prime Minister "grub" is embarrassing, whether you realize it. Even the Queen's staff make sure that her guests eat what they plan to serve. I could be wrong, but I thought that I had read somewhere that Gordon Brown is a vegetarian.

[apple]

Good point. I still can't get around the fact that it's devilishly hard for a woman to win a nationwide election. I wonder what study has been done on the question.

Women in the United States were only granted the right to vote in 1920- about 50 years after Susan B. Anthony made her famous speech on the suffrage movement. I think when considering populist views, the masses in America (since televised debates became de rigeur) tend to vote based on appearances- coupled with the way women are immediately criticized from head to toe regarding her way of dress and the particular gender role she must fulfill, there are numerous precedents a woman must make, and many more obstacles to overcome before she can win that nationwide election.

I suppose it's coming from a country still heavily rooted in Puritan morals and Christian dogma which keeps the political machine gender biased. However, in the UK, at roughly around the same time that women were fighting for the right to vote, the British had already accepted female leadership during Queen Victoria's long, popular reign in which she increased the nation's power and strength, setting a precedent for future Queens to follow.

[Ferrus]

Women in the United States were only granted the right to vote in 1920- about 50 years after Susan B. Anthony made her famous speech on the suffrage movement.
Did women have the vote in gubernational elections?

Women here voted in nationwide elections in 1919, though only over 30 till 1929, it is interesting that the vote was opened to women at the same time - here the effect of the First World War and women entering the munitions factories in large numbers is often cited as the prime cause of the change (along with a propitious parliamentary situation) - what was the chief cause in the US?

[apple]

Did women have the vote in gubernational elections?

Women here voted in nationwide elections in 1919, though only over 30 till 1929, it is interesting that the vote was opened to women at the same time - here the effect of the First World War and women entering the munitions factories in large numbers is often cited as the prime cause of the change (along with a propitious parliamentary situation) - what was the chief cause in the US?

That was exactly the same reason that lead to the suffrage movement in the States- women working in factories- becoming independent of a man's income which became the catalyst to the right to vote. It was also during that time the US had the first woman candidate for President (although I can't find the original source for this reference---although many female Vice-Presidential candidates existed prior to the 1900s)- whom I believe was tainted by a scandal of some sort, which is not unlike the election of the first female President Patel in India just ten days ago. Also, most of the directors in Hollywood were women, back when Hollywood was a viable source of critique against the government and were banded together by a group of artists- until of course, government censorship regulations and the McCarthy Era destroyed all that.

[Ferrus]

The exchange of gifts:


Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when Gordon Brown eagerly opened his present from President George Bush to discover it was a brown, fur-trimmed, leather bomber jacket - an aviator to be precise.

President Bush, wearing a similar jacket, also gave one to Mr Blair
"Oh thanks, George, just what I've always wanted. What is it?"

It is, in fact, the sort of jacket worn by US fighter pilots (at least they do in the films) and members of the Village People and may conjure up thoughts of shock and awe in Iraq.

Probably not the image Mr Brown wants to create.

The president has a stock of them as official Camp David mementoes. He wears one himself from time to time and gave one to Tony Blair on his first visit to Camp David in 2001.

Mr Blair, needless to say, rather took to his and was later pictured wearing it as he clambered, GI Joe-style, into a helicopter.

Mr Brown's, I am reliably informed, has a name tag with his official title, Rt Hon Gordon Brown, on the left breast and a Camp David badge with the presidential seal on the other.

However, the item was left rather dismissively in its large, gold-papered box in an economy-class seat in the prime minister's plane on his return trip to the UK.

And what did Mr Brown give the president? Apparently a political biography.

Meanwhile, I will be keeping a close eye on eBay.

[C.J.Woolf]

And what did Mr Brown give the president? Apparently a political biography.
Whose? Inquiring minds want to know.

I doubt it's Churchill's; Bush already believes he's Churchill. Perhaps Disraeli, a sensible conservative?

[Ferrus]

Whose? Inquiring minds want to know.

I doubt it's Churchill's; Bush already believes he's Churchill. Perhaps Disraeli, a sensible conservative?
It was Churchill apparently. Brown comes across to me as a classic INTJ (he was a university lecturer for a while, has a P.h.D etc.), so it may have been a sly dig at Bush's intelligence.

[C.J.Woolf]

Oh dear. Bush flatters himself with the delusion that he's making a Churchillian lonely stand to rouse his country to recognize and fight an existential threat (Islamic terrorism). What Bush (and the world) needs is a comparative political biography of Churchill and Bush that demonstrates that Bush is definitely not Churchill.

[Ferrus]

Churchill's family was supposedly rather upset when the Bush administration started comparing Bush to Churchill. Apparently Churchill always sought to work with traditional allies more, which is slight distortion of history.

[Limey]

Imagine my surprise when I thought that this thread would be about vintage black on blonde porn.

Maybe in a metaphorical way it was ;)