DREADING LONDON
David Frum and Andrew Sullivan are predicting a public relations disaster when President Bush visits London. David writes:
President Bush is scheduled to travel Sunday to Britain to spend three days in Buckingham Palace as a guest of Queen Elizabeth. No doubt he and Prime Minister Blair have much to discuss at this critical juncture of the war on terror. Nevertheless, we have to face some unwelcome facts. President Bush is not widely popular in Britain. He will not receive a warm welcome from the larger British public. Meanwhile, a vociferous and often violent minority is planning massive protests in central London.
British police have responded to the threat of unrest by banning demonstrators from the area immediately around Parliament. But the cameras will follow wherever the protesters go, and the images those cameras will broadcast — of enraged masses hurling themselves at barricades to be beaten back by police — will look equally awful whether the protests take place 100 yards or 100 blocks from Big Ben.
For a tourist, three days is a very short stay. But for the President of the United States to spend so long in one foreign country represents a huge commitment of time: It's as long as a G-8 meeting for example, the most important summit of the year. The president will surely use the time well. But so will the protesters. And the British, American, and global viewing publics will be treated to every screeching minute of those raucous 72 hours.
David, who knows Bush better than I ever will, suspects p.r. sabotage within the U.S. government. But maybe Bush is just stubborn--not one to back down in the face of protests. Texans are a stiff-necked people.