Of Special Relationships, and Cozy Ones, Too

The BBC coverage of French President Sarkozy’s visit to the US this week was highly entertaining. They even ended one segment with BBC correspondent Kathy Kay visiting Winston Churchill’s statue in a park in DC and asking forlornly “whatever happened to our special relationship?”

I’ve been watching the BBC world news in the evenings for about ten years now. I’ve watched the PBS “Newshour with Jim Lehrer” (or “socialist TV”, as I remind my conservative friends with a smile) since getting a 9to5 job too many years ago, and recently have begun watching the German Deutsche Well news.

I like the PBS Newshour a lot, but also agree with an immigrant Scot in my office who complains that they just lob softball questions to the politicians and don’t really hold their feet to the fire.

I like the European broadcasters, but notice that the Germans work the hardest at presenting a nice objective report. Of course the news selection is tailored to their national interests — that’s natural.

The BBC is excellent reporting, too, but they indulge in the same cult of personality we Americans are subjected to so much of; a few years back it seemed like at least once a week they’d go off about “Jacko.” (At first I didn’t even know who they meant. Oh, Michael Jackson. Got it. But he’s a freak, yeah? Why do you care more about him than we do?)

So for the last five years or so conservative Americans have been making lame French jokes and renaming cafeteria fries, while Dubya idiotically sent our good youth off into harm’s way on a fool’s errand most of the world opposed.

It’s been awful enough living in a chauvinistic country blindly squandering lives so recklessly, and awful too that we’ve dragged other countries in with us. To wit, poor Tony Blair, interested in preserving the “special relationship” the UK has with the US has dutifully followed along with Bush’s foreign misadventures, and been called “Bush’s poodle” at home for his pains.

And then the French hold one of their tidy little elections (all over in a couple months, and back to governance! Imagine that!) and elect someone their liberals apparently call “Sarkozy the American.”

Now, during this visit, Dubya and Sarkozy are practically towel-snapping lockerroom pals, judging by their grinning, arms-about the-shoulders photo ops.

The BBC reported it all with a sort of bemused, glazed smile. I didn’t catch all three news shows, but what I saw of the Germans report didn’t give it the same color the Brits did. I saw two BBC news segments, including comments on how British PM Brown hasn’t been quite so, um, sar-cozy with Bush, and visiting the Churchill statue, as I mentioned, like a forgotten friend.

I am reminded of classrooms where the new girl enters and all the boys’ heads swivel silently. Their familiar female classmates notice the diverted attention and you can see the thought bubbles form, “What’s she got that I haven’t got?”

Ah, well, it’s just a phase. and as Kathy Kay noted with a tight, wry smile in concluding one of her reports, the French, too, must have a word for poodle.