A few readers are stunned by my assertion that lots of liberals would return the bust of Churchill. For instance:
Jonah, Lots of liberals would return Churchill’s bust. Really? If you want to take the time, can you defend that? Obama’s diss of the English with the return of that bust and the silly DVD gift have been the most inexplicable things he has done. Not the worst. Not the most outrageous. Not the thing which most exemplifies the fierce urgency of now. Just the most inexplicable, to me. I must be really out of touch.
And:
So I’m curious. What was the multi-dimensional reasoning behind Obama returning the bust of Churchill? Not just sending it to the basement, but making a grand gesture by returning it.
All righty then. The first thing to keep in mind is that the Churchill bust was a loan, not a gift. My understanding — and I am open to correction — is that the proper thing to do once Obama decided he didn’t want it in his office was to return it. I think that was an awful decision, but it’s not quite the spit in the face that returning a gift would be.
Second, the significance of the bust was not purely about our rich Anglo-roots and our love for our former colonial oppressors (note: my anglophilia is chronic). It was lent to us right after 9/11 to show solidarity with us in the war on terror. Couldn’t Obama’s decision to return it stem from his much discussed — and now, thanks to Bob Woodward, demonstrated — discomfort with the war on terror?
Third, it doesn’t seem absurd to me to think that other anti-war Democrats might have seen the bust in similar ways. If John Edwards had won [shudder] is it inconceivable that he would have taken a pass on the bust? I think Hillary Clinton would have had the smarts to hold onto it for a while at least. John Kerry? Certainly possible. Dennis Kucinich definitely would have returned it. Heck he might have melted it down and used the bronze to make bongs for the indigent victims he released from Gitmo.
It is entirely possible Obama returned the bust because he’s a far more inexperienced and hapless politician than many of us — including him — were led to believe. As Mike Potemra writes below: “Look at the utter gormlessness with which he has been able, over the past two years, to alienate virtually all groups of Americans, left, right, and center; to squander the massive good will of the people who elected him.” Who’s to say that gormlessness ends at the water’s edge? That would certainly explain his utterly thoughtless and incompetent gifts for Brown and the Queen.
Last, I am not saying that Dinesh’s argument is without merit. I don’t believe that and I wouldn’t say it without reading the book even if I suspected it. I find the argument he’s making somewhat persuasive. I’m just saying that it’s not all-explanatory (and readers who say I can’t render that judgment without reading the book, my response is: Fair enough, but his Forbes book excerpt and his interview are straightforward, my reading of them is correct and in good faith, and no author would like all discussion of their book to be halted until everyone’s read the book). It is entirely possible that his anti-colonial views were what ultimately forced the decision to send back the bust. But the upshot of what Dinesh is saying that this is the only plausible explanation for that decision. And that strikes me as implausible.