The Quest for Charisma

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was the first European head of state to be invited to the White House. The unlikely duo of Obama-Brown will follow the Bush-Blair old boy’s club.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher shared one heart and one soul; Tony Blair followed the example of Bill Clinton’s “New Democracy,” and its rejection of the old principles of European social democracy, with his own “New Labour Project.”

Clinton, however, urgently advised Blair to seek close ties with his successor, George W. Bush, something Blair in fact did, much to the dismay of many of his European critics.

Now it’s up to Gordon Brown to develop a relationship with Obama that deserves the label “special.” It’s popular to ridicule the “special relationship” between America and Great Britain as a result of Britain’s inability to come to terms with its post-imperial role in the world. But it cannot be denied that history, culture, blood, and language have fostered an inevitably lopsided relationship between the two countries that has often expressed itself in joint military operations.

The British government was concerned in recent months that Obama would give Great Britain the cold shoulder and de facto terminate their “special relationship.” People pointed to Blair’s role in the Iraq war, a war Obama voted against. Diplomats apprehensively recalled that Obama’s Kenyan grandfather had been mistreated by British colonial occupiers.

All the greater, then, the relief when it became clear that Obama held no grudges. Gordon Brown won the “European Beauty Contest” that ignites among European heads of state every time a new U.S. president takes office. He won the crown, while Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who worked feverishly to beat Gordon Brown out for the honor, had to settle for runners-up and a future date in Washington.

Obama not only praised the “special partnership” with Great Britain; he bestowed upon Gordon Brown, whose administration is on its last legs at home, the unusual honor of addressing a joint session of Congress.

That wasn’t accidental. Important figures in the new administration, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, head of the National Economic Council, and Robert Reich, Obama’s economic advisor, are all long-time friends of Gordon Brown and all place great store in his economic expertise. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman also praised Brown in a New York Times article in which he said Brown had “dealt intelligently” with the financial crisis and because of his speedy action “saved the global financial system.”

But the praise proved to be premature. The situation has steadily deteriorated since that time and the crisis has enveloped the entire world. America’s GDP has declined more drastically than first feared. It looks equally gloomy in Great Britain, while on the European continent, a threatening chasm between East and West has opened in the wake of the financial crisis.

The Anglo-American “special relationship” will change from the Bush-Blair days, concentrating not on the “Global War on Terrorism,” although that war will continue as Obama made unmistakably clear in his inaugural address. The priority now will be the struggle against global recession.

Gordon Brown belongs to a group jointly responsible for today’s financial misery. He was the architect of “tread lightly regulation” and in 1997 created a new, and as we now know, incompetent oversight system of the banking industry. But he does, however, have a reputation in the Obama team for knowing what’s now necessary.

Brown sees himself as the junior partner with a glamorous president in this dynamic duo, a partner whose radiance he hopes might also shine on him. Both men are convinced that a classic social-democratic policy of deficit spending is now called for, which is why both men are ramping up their respective national debt to record levels.

Brown will use his appearance before the U.S. Congress to deliver warnings about protectionist tendencies, to encourage equal trade, and to push the necessity of new international regulations. It won’t be easy to get those messages across. The Congress, with its Democratic majority, now tends toward national navel-gazing more strongly than in Bush’s day. This has raised alarm throughout Europe, as the events of the past few weeks have shown.

One thing Brown has not succeeded in doing: ridding himself of his predecessor’s shadow. Tony Blair, like the tortoise in his race with the hare, has already succeeded. He met with Obama in Washington, they got along famously, and, according to all accounts, even prayed together.