or some cojones!
But of course he's too much a gentleman to say so in those words
By Winter Patriot on 9/14/2006, 2:50pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to a report from the BBC,

Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said he is "disappointed" by the apparently subservient attitude of the British government towards the White House.

Mr Carter said Tony Blair was a good man, but could have used his influence with President Bush more wisely.

The 81-year-old said there had once been "a very strong voice from London in the shaping of a common policy".

Quite correct! Once there was a very strong voice from London ... but not anymore!

Earlier this week, the prime minister hit out at the "anti-American feeling" of some European politicians, describing it as "madness".

"The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them [the United States]," he wrote in a pamphlet published by the Foreign Policy Centre.

Blair had more to say about the "madness" which seems to have infected a huge portion of Europe, and you can read more about it in this BBC report.

The BBC's report on Jimmy Carter's comments continues:

But Mr Carter told Newsnight: "I have been really disappointed in the apparent subservience of the British government's policies related to many of the serious mistakes that have been originated in Washington."

Mr Carter, an opponent of the US-led war in Iraq, added: "No matter what kind of radical or ill-advised policy was proposed from the White House, it seems to me that almost automatically the government of Great Britain would adopt the same policy without exerting its influence.

This was the case "in the Middle East peace process, in the case of the Lebanese/Israeli war in the recent past and certainly in the ill-advised abandonment of the war against terrorism to substitute the war in Iraq", he said.

Asked if he thought Britain was exerting its influence behind the scenes, Jimmy Carter replied he had seen no evidence of that.

"I haven't seen the corrective effect of British disagreement with what the White House has proposed. It may be there, it hasn't been evident to the public," he said.

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Article Categories: Tony Blair, Jimmy Carter