Gordon Brown: More Bulldog than Poodle?

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Interesting analysis of Brown and Bush’s first meet.


More Bulldog Than Poodle (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073001597.html?nav=rss_email/components)



At their get-acquainted meeting at Camp David, President Bush recounted to Gordon Brown a briefing by a White House aide who told Bush that the new British prime minister used to be a rugby star -- confusing Brown with a man of the same name who played forward for the British Lions in the 1970s.


That, at least, is the version of the story proffered to reporters by Damian McBride, Brown's political adviser.

"Not true," Bush spokesman Gordon Johndroe responded when told of the account. The aide who briefed Bush, he said, knew there were two Gordon Browns.


It was a day of such disagreements.


Brown announced that "Afghanistan (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Afghanistan?tid=informline) is the front line against terrorism" -- contradicting Bush's frequent claim that Iraq (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iraq?tid=informline) is the "central front" in that battle. While Bush spoke passionately of terrorists as "evil," Brown spoke of terrorism as "a crime." Where Bush described their meetings as "casual" and "relaxed," Brown found them to be "full and frank" -- diplomatic code for tough.



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I think Blair got a bit of a bad rap. He seemed eloquent and scincere in his beliefs. How will things play out with Brown? He already seems to be steering his ship on a slightly different course.

[ElanthianSiren]

You could easily argue that Blair deserved the bad rap he got. I believe anti-war sentiment was very high in Britain at the onset of the Iraq presence. It wasn't like the US where most people just swallowed the strange deviation from pathological narcissism that argued that an insane radical dictator would share with an extensive power-hungry sect like al'qaeda.

Brown's comment on Afghanistan seems a bit off IMO though. As has been pointed out numerous times, the war in Iraq has caused a "fly paper" effect, with terrorists moving there for jihad. If we'd just been able to go into Afghanistan and focus in that general vicinity, including Pakistan, he might have a point, but his country is in it now. To people who will start discussing the necessity of Iraq regarding basing rights etc, I understand where you're coming from with that. It's Brown's rhetoric I'm questioning.

Perhaps their troops will switch with some of ours in Afghanistan and Brown can uphold that message to his people. I don't really see many other options that aren't going to piss off Bush and still move their troops in a manner consistent with what he's saying. I'm not sure I believe that they'd just up and give the finger to the US (retreat); I might be wrong though.