Evacuation Day*
TOL’s Gerard Baker on Gordon Brown: The famously America-loving Brit PM-in-waiting has a delicate game of distancing himself while remaining America’s staunchest ally, particularly with Sarkozy and Merkel angling for the spot.
Expect some withdrawal from the global stage, and remember that no matter what Brown says, says Baker, the America this old school Scottish leftie knows and loves stretches all the way from Cape Cod to Harvard Yard. As a resident of that lovely turf, I believe I know what he’s talking about, and it isn’t the dunes, scrub pine, picket fences, spreading oaks, Civil War monuments on town commons, salt-box colonials, old stone walls, Little League ballfields, VFWs, Andy Card’s house, etc.
Theo Spark, no Brown fan, on another piece of British business. Iranian hostage crisis was no one’s fault.
*Baker doesn’t think Britain will greatly change it’s GWOT policies under Brown, but notes he has to cater to strong domestic anti-war sentiment, which has already prompted premature pullout plans in Basra, and a caving to the mullahs. Appropos of nothing, Evacuation Day, March 17, is an official holiday in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville marking the departure of British troops in 1776 after an 11-month seige by Washington’s forces perched on Dorchester Heights and in Cambridge. It’s cynically seen mainly as a “hack holiday” around here, an excuse for Irish pols to take the day off. The primary observance is the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Now certain local pols of Irish descent have another pending British retreat to celebrate.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:50 am on Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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