I would have never said this a few months ago, but I’m now pondering the idea of a new “special relationship” in my Los Angeles Daily News column today. Hint: They were quite special friends in helping America win her independence… and once changed the dynamics of papas fritas:
“Even the most loving of special relationships can fizzle.
Sometimes no one’s really to blame for this, or at least that’s what the Cosmo article about moving on will tell you. Sometimes two parties just grow apart, begin to see the world differently, have polar goals.
And when that happens, you can either accept it and become, as Kyra Sedgwick said in the movie ‘Singles,’ one of those couples who sit in Denny’s and don’t speak to each other, or you can find a new lover.
Perhaps - ooh-la-la - a French one?
The term ’special relationship’ has long been used to describe the United States and the United Kingdom. It has included alliance on military matters, as well as nonmonogamous financial relations. And as far as cultural ties, we’ll always be grateful for the Beatles and Ozzy, and may forgive our cross-pond paramours one day for the Spice Girls.
But this is not Margaret Thatcher’s Britain anymore. Tony Blair, who has steadily weathered criticism for his alliance with George W. Bush, is soon stepping aside and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is set to take his place. The next challenge the Labour Party will face is the Conservative Party - also not Thatcher’s anymore - and prime minister wannabe David Cameron, who has turned pimping for votes by changing a party’s platform into an art form.
Polls show that Americans still like Britain, but Brits tend to be more soured on considering the U.S. a key ally. Meanwhile, the U.K.’s own image has suffered from a dangerous rise in Islamic extremism on home soil and the embarrassing hostage incident this year with Iran, when afterward a young sailor told tabloids that Iranian guards had upset him by comparing him to Mr. Bean.
Could it be that a more fulfilling special relationship awaits across the English Channel?
It may have been unthinkable in the days of Jacques Chirac, when french fries became Freedom Fries and Bill O’Reilly called for a boycott of France. But there’s a new sheriff in town, and he promises to alter much of the political model that has inspired so many French jokes by people who actually work 40 hours a week. In fact, in a poll commissioned by the French-American Foundation after French elections, 80 percent of Americans said it was important for the U.S. to have good future relations with France.
And after powering through that contentious election, President Nicolas Sarkozy is poised to shift the landscape of power in Europe. …”
Read the whole thing! And mark on your calendars the day in history that Bridget started favoring the French…
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