{"id":446,"date":"2003-11-20T11:10:13","date_gmt":"2003-11-20T19:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2003\/11\/welcoming_the_president\/"},"modified":"2014-04-28T12:17:34","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T16:17:34","slug":"welcoming_the_president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2003\/11\/welcoming_the_president.html","title":{"rendered":"WELCOMING THE PRESIDENT"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British sure know how to welcome a guest<\/a>, especially when it’s Gee Dubya Shrub on a state visit. Let’s not count the fountain water stained red in Trafalgar Square; it’s the scribblers — wise-asses, poets, professors, novelists and the cream of the theater — whose tone set the example.<\/p>\n

Dear Jorge,
Look out! Behind you!!
Hahahahahahahaha, only kidding.
Love,
DBC Pierre<\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n

That note, actually by novelist Peter Finlay using his nom de plume, was one of the 21 letters published earlier this week<\/a> in London’s Guardian. Others who offered their welcome naturally included members of Parliament, none of whose words were as pungent as these:<\/p>\n

Dear President Bush,
I’m sure you’ll be having a nice little tea party with your fellow war criminal, Tony Blair. Please wash the cucumber sandwiches down with a glass of blood, with my compliments.
Harold
\nPinter
playwright<\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n

Chances are that Pinter would not be pleased to find himself in the same reception line as novelist Frederick Forsyth, who minced no words either. He offered a scathing review of the protestors and urged the president to pay them no mind, all neatly wrapped in chauvinist pride:<\/p>\n

You will find yourself assailed on every hand by some pretty pretentious characters collectively known as the British left. They traditionally believe they have a monopoly on morality and that your recent actions preclude you from the club. You opposed and destroyed the world’s most blood-encrusted dictator. This is quite unforgivable.<\/p>\n

I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.<\/p>\n

It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine
\nsecond.<\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n

Sebastian Faulks, another well-known novelist (who described himself as pro-American), provided a counterpoint to Forsyth:<\/p>\n

You can laugh at the old Stalinists who lead the protest march against you and ignore the anti-western ranting of a few journalists here whose pathology is one of guilt and self-hatred. But please do be aware of the distaste felt towards what you have done by reasonable, pro-American Britons. I hate to think what the allied dead of two world wars would have made of it, and of your presidency.<\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n

Missing from the letter writers, however, were the tastemakers who really make a difference. What did Rod Stewart have to say? Did Elton John have an opinion? And how about Robbie Williams? That’s not even counting the rappers. Let’s hear it from the heavyweights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British sure know how to welcome a guest, especially when it’s Gee Dubya Shrub on a state visit. Let’s not count the fountain water stained red in Trafalgar Square; it’s the scribblers — wise-asses, poets, professors, novelists and the cream of the theater — whose tone set the example. Dear Jorge, Look out! Behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-7c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}