During the summer, when our new PM was settling into the job, I saw a snippet of TV news which angered me. At the time, no-one seemed to see it in the same light as I did, and indeed subsequent government disasters seem to have eclipsed this marginal observation. But I thought I would record it anyway...
Brown's first visit to Bush was obviously going to be a difficult event. Blair had been his mate, spoken his language and fawningly colluded with one of the most ruthless projects of belligerence in recent history. I observed that Brown had a very different personal style. Indeed, my sense of him is that he is further along the autistic spectrum than most of us: managing himself in interpersonal situations seems to be a baffling project that he doesn't quite have a handle on. He reportedly had to be trained to smile and give the appearance of connecting at an emotional level before he was considered electable.
I expected that Bush - the archetypal frat boy - would have problems in dealing with him. What I did not expect was that he would do what frat boys do with the new kid on the block - to subject him to a finely-tuned bit of humiliation.
When Brown arrived in the USA, Bush arranged to transport him from the plane to the waiting press pack (as in "wolf pack" - and guess who is "top dog"...) in a golf buggy. As he set off, he threw the buggy into a tight circle so that Brown was subjected to centrifugal force on the outside of the curve and, without a steering wheel to hold on to, had to tense his body and grab for support in an undignified way.
I remarked on this to a German friend, and he pointed out that Bush had put Angela Merkel through a blatant and abusive piece of intimidation in his "playful" alpha-male way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dfrHT8o-0A
But back to the golf buggy - I have looked around for media comments:
"If Brown was deferential, Bush was playful -- from the very beginning of the visit. When Brown arrived at Camp David on Sunday, Bush invited him into a golf cart labeled 'Golf Cart One' on the front. The president started to head off but then threw the cart into a 360-degree turn, smiling mischievously for the cameras, before speeding off. Brown, in this AFP photo, looks a bit aghast. But he went along for the ride."
source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/30/BL2007073000950_2.html?hpid=topnews
"The hacks here are divided about whether to call this the 'roast beef summit' (after the food served to the president and prime minister) or the 'golf buggy' summit (after the vehicle Mr Bush took Mr Brown out for a spin in, producing a look on the PM's face that said 'this wasn't in the script'!)"
source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/gordon_brown_usa_07/
I didn't detect much negative comment at the time, but it evoked in me a surprising and totally unfamiliar sense of patriotic outrage that my prime minister should be subjected to such treatment.
Well, I suppose that's what happens when a country allows its military-industrial subculture to engineer the results of an election...
