THE TELEGRAPH: When David Cameron visits America next week he will learn a lot – about how not to run a country, says Peggy Noonan.
Dear Mr Cameron, welcome young friend. Welcome to America. Bring your bright, dashing self to our shores. Speak your piece with affection and modesty and go home a wiser man.
As for your own leadership, here is some advice. Do not imitate Mr Obama. He has been a disappointment; learn from his mistakes. America is not Britain and Britain is not America, but the culture of our politics – the polls, the imagery, the fixation on sound bites, the nonsense, the essential shallowness of presentation and of thinking, the inability of political figures to think long term – has grown similar. To your detriment, by the way.
Shall I tell you what Americans think? We think you used to have fusty, occasionally dishevelled, pipe-smoking, brandy-taking, hopelessly avuncular figures as your leaders: no one cared what they looked like, though they were interesting to listen to, or at least to watch moving through murky waters – like Harold Macmillan. Mrs Thatcher, too, was this sort, though never dishevelled. Now you have leaders who are young, sleek, slick, who believe always and almost only in what used to be called public relations and is now called the brand. I name no names. And, actually, I don't mean to be harsh.
You can today go to any office of any great leader in America and Britain – business leader, church leader, political leader – and you will find the great topic of conversation, the great focus of attention, the object of daily obsession, is not the mission (making money, spreading faith, leading an anxious citizenry in the right direction) but how the mission is playing in the media. It's all they talk about. This is very sad but it is not my point, to which I return. (Actually, let me end this section with some political advice. Grow older quicker. Here is a secret of the voters of the Western democracies: we all miss old.)
In Mr Obama's poll numbers this week, CBS News reports 13 per cent of the people think his economic leadership has bettered their lives. That means 87 per cent do not – that is rather a lot. The Rasmussen Reports' daily tracking poll yesterday showed 43 per cent strongly disapprove of his leadership and 26 strongly approve. This is low. These are only two examples of the general slide you discern as people talk about Obama.
Here are the things he got wrong. In the middle of an economic crash, and in the middle of record-breaking federal budgets and budget deficits, Mr Obama started a new entitlement. This struck people, by which I mean almost everyone, as off-point. We are in a crisis, part of the crisis involves spending money we don't have, and our answer is to spend more? It wasn't a policy, it was a non sequitur. Continue reading and comment >>> Peggy Noonan | Friday, July 16, 2010
Peggy Noonan is a columnist for the 'Wall Street Journal' and was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan
