The President of the United States, George Bush has an approval rating in the low thirties and has done for a long time. This is the lowest level of support that a president has enjoyed since Nixon was impeached for corruption, and it was said that all this proved that you can fool 30% of the American people all the time. As a Brit who has lived in the US for the last year and indeed grown very fond of this country it seems to me increasingly strange that we should continue to frame our support for America in terms of supporting the policies of a man that very few Americans find agreeable.
This I believe has been one of the underlying flaws to Blair’s foreign policy, and it is not without its consequences. To many Americans, Blair is viewed as no better than Bush, which isn’t a good thing. Blair has projected the image of Britain abroad as one of subservient, and unimaginative, all too willing to act against our own interests for a photo opportunity with the US President. We have lost the respect we once had abroad as a leader in international relations. Even in the eyes of those we slavishly support.
The politicians in Britain need to understand that in this particular moment in History with America being lead by someone who is viewed by his own people as deficient and dangerous, we will not lose the support of Americans if we hold back our support of America.
To illustrate this point I will leave you with Jon Stuart of the Daily Show’s take on the farewell visit of Blair to Bush, well worth watching and can be found here: http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=87285
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