I wondered this morning if Barbara and other women, e.g. Dr. Rice, have always tried to salvage Bush's reputation. Why in the world did the White House want it to be seen as his wife's idea to invite the Queen? Would it look too political if Bush did it himself? Does the Queen wonder why he wishes to parse the invitation in this way? It's BIZARRE! I can't imagine my husband saying to anyone, let alone royalty, "It was my wife's idea to invite you all over today, I did not think of it!" What's the message in that?! Everything is so spun out of that White House it was probably Dr. Rice, or Karl Rove who actually came up with this royal parade.
I guess the image they would like to create is of Bush fretting about how to win the already lost "war" and Barbara tapping on his shoulder saying, "Oh honey, let's invite the Queen!!!" I can't decide if that's better or worse than when I found Barbara babbling about restoring grasses and wildflowers on her ranch in Texas earlier in this Iraq debacle.
They are out of touch.
There was so much talk of our alliance. That was the only substance behind the dinner...here we are, formal allies and we have formal ties (sorry).
Well, I frankly think that a lot of Brits are probably going to flinch when they, like me, see a picture of their Queen next to our "King." In my mind, this dinner does nothing to unify the people of England with us, although many U.S. anglofiles will certainly be pleased by it. Republicans eat that stuff up--those f-ing Tories. So this was all about Bush's popularity at home. No historian is going to go, "Barbara invited the Queen and that changed the whole tone of Bush's failing Presidency!"
They want to be liked (or, maybe I mean, admired).
I hope that the Queen thought it was an opportunity to teach Bush something about war; from an academic but probably more accurate point of view.
Perhaps she said, "George, you're no Winston..." (-:
Peace.
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