From a reader:

Really, a bilious letter from Iain’s ‘friend’ is sufficient evidence for you to conclude that it is more likely than not that Bush is responsible for seriously wounding our relationship with Britain? (I am trying hard to paraphrase fairly) And that because they didn’t get enough of a bribe for doing the right thing. And were once disrespected (I’d like to see the quote) by a famously blunt man, who incidentally almost always goes out of his way to exaggerate their contribution . Where is Florence King, when we need her? Here’s the view of your own Conservative friend (well, I hope I would be, if we ever met), whose credentials in support of the alliance are impeccable, who became an American by Choice, who has had one child here, plus two in Britain and one in Belgium,as if that’s relevant, and is equally frustrated at the state of the alliance but not because of our administration, or even Blair and his government, but rather because of the weasel-worded semi-support of a Conservative Party of whom Disraeli, Burke and Churchill would be thoroughly ashamed. 1. The disgusting behavior of the British newspapers, after 9/11, provided me with sufficient cause to write to my son, also an American by Choice, that it was time to burn our UK passports 2. It has been the most common, non-contact sport of the Brits, Conservative as well as, maybe even more than Labour, to denigrate anything and everything about our President ever since he was first elected. My wife, also an American by Choice, has to put up with non-stop abuse about him from her supposedly Conservative, pro-alliance family every time she visits. 3. The British Conservatives under Howard were about as mealy mouthed as it’s possible to be in their “support” for the Iraq war, no special relationship there. Under Cameron, they’re no longer conservatives at all. 4. “America is going to have to give something to this relationship”! How about a totally futile dance with the UN over Iraq? How about making a WMD stockpile, the least of reasons, the center of the case for war? How about falling in with the diplomatic approach to Iran’s nuclear program and allowing the UK and Europe to take the lead? All these were done to help Blair. And she’s complaining that, in a conversation he initiated, he was painted, by himself, as a ‘supplicant’! 5. Arresting three crooks is resented by a British Conservative! I guess we’re dealing with a paleo- here. Another noble, who doesn’t want to oblige. It is the job, nay the duty of British C/conservatives to be realistic about the ‘special relationship’. Churchill was. “Never to be separated from the Americans” was how he put it. That’s a strategist thinking about what’s good for his country, not being petulant about the reality of Britain’s place in the world today. In the immortal words of your husband’s country, woman: suck it up, suck it up.