# Bush and the UK? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 7, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999 "2004-07-07T20:26:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/1 "2004-07-07T20:26:33Z")
So I’ve been in the UK for the past few months but I’m going home next month and I was thinking about writing something about being over here for the paper I was working for in _New_ England. Specifically about the perception of America/Bush etc. over here. Which I have to say has been pretty negative in my experience (not that anyone has been rude to me, y’all don’t seem to have much problem differenciating between AMERICA and an American 🙂 ) But I thought as I have this wonderful resource at my finger tips, I’d ask here too. UK Dopers, what’s your perception of America? How has it changed since Bush? Iraq? How do you feel about Blair being in bed with him? Anyone want to say anything _nice_ about him :eek: 😃 ? ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/2 "2004-07-07T20:32:06Z")
I hate to say this but my perception of America (especially middle-America) has changed since bush. I am absolutely dumbfounded that so many people _still_ support him. My perception of those Americans is of people blinded by their love of George Bush. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/3 "2004-07-08T00:10:54Z")
Good things to say about Mr. Bush? Uh, let me see. He’s not Hitler. Hitler was elected. He occasionally speaks the truth. He’s optimistic. For example, he can’t think of any mistakes he has made. As far as we know, he has never personally killed any dogs. Even he cannot destroy this country. We’ll get over it. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/4 "2004-07-08T01:46:31Z")
I can’t honestly think of anyone I know expressing any enthusiasm of any world leader. The nearest would be “Who cares how he smokes cigars” and affectionately referring to “Red Ken” But I think my friends and family are (a) rather too cynical and (b) left, putting them a bit behind. I have always felt safe assuming anyone I met would hate Bush - justifiably or not. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/5 "2004-07-08T01:59:28Z")
I’ve read about that somewhere–that Europeans, as seen in the recent EU elections, are getting cynical about all their politicians. Guess some of it rubs off to us. > [@](#): > > I have always felt safe assuming anyone I met would hate Bush - justifiably or not. Yikes. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/6 "2004-07-08T10:33:30Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > I hate to say this but my perception of America (especially middle-America) has changed since bush. I am absolutely dumbfounded that so many people _still_ support him. I have to say, so am I. I guess I’m trying to determine if, while I doubt we were ever as beloved as we liked to think we were :dubious: 😃 , if Bush has caused as be a downturn as is it seems to me he has. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/7 "2004-07-08T11:42:22Z")
Continued support for Bush confirms to many Europeans what they’ve always suspected about Americans; they don’t give a wet slap about the rest of the world. Bush could march over and invade Europe for all they care, as long as its done without American casualties. All other countries are jealous of America and very far away, so who cares. I know this isn’t the case (well, not for _all_ Americans 🙂 ) but that’s how it looks. Bush lied (or was willfully ignorant) to get a reason to flatten another country, for the oil. That’s as plain on the nose on his face. So it worries us that a large percentage of Americans don’t have a problem with that. There’s also the obvious fact that Bush isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the toolbox. Yet he’s in charge. It worries us that no-one has a problem with this either. We may hate them, but we like to think that our politicians fools. Blair hasn’t emerged unscathed from his little Iraqi escapade, but he doesn’t come over like a dim-wit, so we can at least hope he’s not screwing up _everything_. Whatever their politics (or stance about Iraq), I think it’s reasonably safe to say that Bush is not held in high regard by the average Brit. Certainly far less than his father or Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/8 "2004-07-08T11:45:53Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > We may hate them, but we like to think that our politicians fools. **aren’t** fools. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/9 "2004-07-08T11:49:18Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Good things to say about Mr. Bush? Uh, let me see. > > He’s not Hitler. Hitler was elected. Huh? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/10 "2004-07-08T12:03:17Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Huh? At least Hitler waited until after he won an election before fixing the system. Bush lost, and then fixed it. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/11 "2004-07-08T12:19:43Z")
> [@Shade](#): > > I have always felt safe assuming anyone I met would hate Bush - justifiably or not. This is a reasonable assumption, in the UK or in Ireland (except when talking to American expats, when I _try_ to keep schtum unless the subject comes up). [Europe’s low opinion of Bush sinks](http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:2R6BRg4ycocJ:www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/politics/8626094.htm%3F1c): > [@](#): > > Earlier this year, George Osborne, a Conservative member of Parliament, took a straw poll of some legislators from his party. The subject was President Bush. The results were not pretty. > > “George Bush scares the hell out of me,” one Tory said, according to an article by Osborne in The Spectator. > > Another told him: “Bush is a man who might wail at the moon. I don’t feel comfortable with him.” A third said that while he would vote for Bush in November if he could, “I think Anglo-American relations would be better if Kerry won.” > > That was long before pictures showing the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners were published all over the world, horrifying even Bush’s allies. > > And the people Osborne polled were all Conservatives, by tradition and temperament the Republican Party’s natural friends across the Atlantic. > [@](#): > > In Britain, America’s staunchest ally in the war in Iraq, a poll of 1,007 people taken last month for The Times of London by the British polling company Populus found support for Sen. John Kerry over Bush by a margin of 56 percent to 22 percent. > > From America, a poll of people in nine nations conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in March found that opinion of the president and, by extension, the United States, had plummeted across Europe since Bush took office. With very few exceptions, we hate him. I myself feel a visceral dislike of the man whenever I see him on TV. This is a rather emotive response, and not one I am proud of or that I can justify when addressing the subject logically, in comparison to other unpleasant world leaders. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/12 "2004-07-08T12:35:47Z")
I’m always glad he didn’t become a doctor. Imagine the smirk telling you that you had cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/13 "2004-07-08T12:59:55Z")
I think Bush is widely distrusted over here - I don’t know anybody who thinks of him as either a clever, or an honest, man. And a lot of the _displayed_ attitudes of the US over the Iraq war have, as **Futile Gesture** pointed out, made the US look insular and parochial, and (worse, from our point of view) committed to putting its own interests first, whatever the cost to anyone else … If you don’t really care about Iraqi national sovereignty, why should we believe you’d care about ours? Launching an invasion based on unconvincing (and, it turned out, entirely specious) evidence … that’s kind of alarming. (Especially as some of you still seem to think the evidence _was_ convincing … ) ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/14 "2004-07-08T13:05:35Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > This is a reasonable assumption, in the UK or in Ireland (except when talking to American expats, when I _try_ to keep schtum unless the subject comes up). Ah, well, you see why I’m asking the question then. Hmmm…I remember a dinner party I went to right after I came here…at the house of a _conservative_ MP, in fact. And the akward silence that followed my being asked what I thought of Bush. I got the impression had I said I supported him, they simply wouldn’t have know what to say to me. ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/15 "2004-07-08T13:09:31Z")
It would be interesting if when the UK posters answered this they said where they stood in the political spectrum, I suspect that many of the people who dislike him so intensely are on the left of the spectrum. Am I right? These people hated Reagan with a passion too (remember the “gone with the wind” poster?). Conversely I thought Clinton a wanker of the first water. From a firmly right of centre perspective, I really don’t see why he is so disliked. On Iraq, the country was pretty split at the time, and still is. I think it was right and still is, although many don’t. I would rather have Bush as peresident than Kerry (from what I know of him). I wouldn’t vote Labour if my life depended on it, so my view on Blair and Bush isn’t really that relevant. For what it’s worth I am happy that Blair is on-side with Bush. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/16 "2004-07-08T13:35:04Z")
> [@owlstretchingtime](#): > > It would be interesting if when the UK posters answered this they said where they stood in the political spectrum, I suspect that many of the people who dislike him so intensely are on the left of the spectrum. Am I right? > I would rather have Bush as peresident than Kerry (from what I know of him). > > I wouldn’t vote Labour if my life depended on it, so my view on Blair and Bush isn’t really that relevant. For what it’s worth I am happy that Blair is on-side with Bush. See my above post. IE, I was amounst Tories and I still got a very anti-Bush impression. But, yes, that’s part of what I’m asking about, so where people stand on the political spectrum is indeed relevant, so thanks, owl. And yes of course your view is relevant, so thanks again. Can I ask, as a conservative, has Bush…and Iraq, changed your veiw of America in any way? Not neccesarily negatively, in any way? ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/17 "2004-07-08T13:47:26Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > Can I ask, as a conservative, has Bush…and Iraq, changed your veiw of America in any way? Not neccesarily negatively, in any way? When amongst Tories; don’t confuse a general air of superiority about the Americans and the American system with a disagreement with the policies of the US Govt. Lots of us think Bush is a moron. Also his religious mania is spooky from here. That doesn’t mean we disagree with his actions. The most pro-tory media in the UK are the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator. Both are solidly behind Bush (Mark Steyn is a star columnist in both). However has my opinion of America changed under Bush - yes it’s improved. Clinton was too busy getting rim-jobs from fat birds to go after the people who attacked the WTC, US embassies etc. At least Bush has the balls to go after them. Whether he is going about it in the right way is another matter. Of course there’s a lot I don’t like about the current administration, specifically around free trade and similar areas. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/18 "2004-07-08T14:42:55Z")
Clinton wasn’t a wanker. He had someone take care of that job 😃 The Bush person just has always smacked of insincerity. There is a world of dictators out there…hmmmmmmmmm Iraq has a shitload of oil. Pick a dictator, any dictator. Yep Oil Dude will do. Clinton SEEMED to be more world friendly. He might have been bullshiting but he made America appear to be more user friendly. Clinton didn’t seem to thump the world with the “US is best” stick. Bush is scary. Wayyyyyyyyyy down in the arse end of the world we debated Iraq. Could we be further away? Could we still be that dedicated to an ally who dumped us. Yes we thunk and thunk about it :D. We never said no before. We currently have a leftish govt. We said no. We were even soundly told off by our biggest friend…Australia. I was proud of my govt though. After the “war was won” we said count us in, in the clean up. 61 Kiwi personnel are there now. I hear some people say 'Hmmmmmmmmmpfffffffff 61!!!" We are a country of 4 mill. We have never had many to offer but we always offered what we had. I object to one single NZer going off to Iraq. There are so many bullies/tyrants/horrible bastards that WE are not fixing/helping/aiding that there is NO single good reason for Saddam to be picked out (Zimbabwee anyone?,hmmm Sudan, North Korea etc etc) I am very glad that I don’t come from the “Greatest country in the world” place…seems like a whole lot of pressure. Ok. Yes Bush changed my opinon of the American GOVT for the worse. Long live lying about BJ’s. The only person that should have been cranky forgave him. ---
**Author:** ![Legolamb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@Legolamb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legolamb)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/19 "2004-07-08T15:12:50Z")
I don’t know if you’ve read [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=265110) so I’ll just repost the link to the [YouGov poll](http://www.yougov.com/yougov_website/asp_besPollArchives/pdf/TEL020101039_3.pdf) that I linked to there from November 2003, when Bush visited Britain. As I said in that thread, I’ve not been able to find any more recent solid cites, but, anecdotally from personal experience at least, I would say that particularly since the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, opinion of Bush in Britain and the rest of Europe is even lower than figures given there. I was born and raised in a Conservative family, would never vote Labour (Tony Blair IMHO is a repugnant sleazebag who wouldn’t know what the truth was if it smacked him upside the head and stole his wallet) or LibDem (bunch of bloody do-gooders), and personally, I find Bush’s policies, at least those we hear about, are scarily right-wing. They also tend to smack of totalitarianism (The Patriot Act) and/or bigoted intolerance (gay rights, abortion etc.). Unemployment under Bush is very high and he has introduced ridiculous tax cuts that only benefit his corporate cronies at a time when, thanks to his illegal war, the nation is sorely in debt and ought to be raising taxes to help itself out of the hole he dug for it. Then of course there is the Iraq war. An illegal mess thrust upon us through lies, deceit and misinformation that has only resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent soldiers not to mention Iraqi civillians, and also looks to have been a great recruiting advert for Al Qaeda and other radical Muslim groups. And Bush says he can’t think of any mistakes he’s made… :rolleyes: Yeah, you could pretty much say I dislike him. Or possibly something much, much stronger. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999/20 "2004-07-08T22:22:46Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > My perception of those Americans is of people blinded by their love of George Bush. It’s not love of George Bush. It’s overwhelming cow-eyed terror at everything Bush says he’s defending them from. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-and-the-uk/253999.md?page=2)