"A Tenacious Obsession with the Last War"

If I were a UK citizen, I'd probably vote for the (party of) the man who said this:

"Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche. All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place."

(Via).

 Ahh, I sighed wistfully, would that my country had a national leader who could properly use words like 'febrile' and 'tenacious'. Oh wait, I forgot -- it does.

Comments

[S. Anderson]

You've got to be kidding. To seriously equate an over inflated national ego, to the knowledge that a whole generation eagerly embraced Hitler and all his dark dreams, is a foul and loathsome trivializing of human suffering on a massive scale. The idea that the putative British arrogance is somehow as heavy a burden as the knowledge that two generations ago an entire nation accepted the rational of 'totalar krieg' is jaw dropping. It is worthy of Goebbels himself.

[Andrew]

Turning corpsmen into corpsemen? Obama can't hold a candle to Bush on that count.

[h. evans]

Doesn't every president edit his speeches?
His replacing the word 'compassion' with a flowery description of the word is to me not pleasing to the ear, and far less effective.
I do wish we had a leader, a Commander in Chief, who would not turn a corpsman into a corpseman (twice in one speech) and would take the trouble to find out just how many states made up this country he wanted to rule. Just before he was elected he thought
it was roughly between 57 and 59.

[Gerrit K]

It never occured to me that the Brits are so obsessed with their engagement in Irak or Afghanistan. Or what is meant by the *last* war?

[Anonymous]

"A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place."

This is very British--especially the "We need to be put back in our place"--and on the face of it, very simpatico. As an American and an Anglophile who, however, and unfortunately, has not spent much time in England, I wonder, despite the disclaimer clause in this sentence, how sincere it is. In my occasional dealings with Brits the topos of humility--such as your example--may give way, suddenly and unexpectedly, to gushings of unbearable arrogance and nationalism, usually well concealed under a mannered, polite veneer.

Which does not subtract--in the least--from my admiration for the country and its denizens. For every vice, a virtue.

[Alex]

Why not post the link of Cleggs original article from 2002? Here it ist: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/19/eu.germany

Reading that original article I am even more amazed how a newspaper like Daily Mail could habe the presumptuousness trying to spin it to a negative campaign. I couldn't imagine even for BILD to pervert the content so much by taking the word out of the mouth.

[LemmusLemmus]

"But frankly, I can't think of any country in which an atheist would have a fair chance of winning (save Iceland)."

Um, Germany? Gerhard Schröder?

[Marian Wirth]

I would definitely vote for a man who has the guts to begin his answer to the question "Should the Pope visit the UK?" with "I am no man of faith, but ..." in a nationwide televised prime time debate.

The other day, there was an article in the Daily Telegraph which suggested that Clegg as an outspoken atheist would probably have no chance of being elected in Iran or the US. But frankly, I can't think of any country in which an atheist would have a fair chance of winning (save Iceland).

[cohu]

I envy the British for their ability to express deep emotions, albeit in a non-verbal way...

[LemmusLemmus]

. . . not to mention the last World Cup final they were in.