Deploring Britain

I'm fascinated at how testy and downright cranky some conservatives are at the relatively peaceful resolution of the British-Iranian hostage crisis. Writing about it, Jonah Goldberg, over at NRO, laments that "looking to the British government itself, pride seems to be sorely lacking. The most outrage I could find from a government official canme from Patricia Hewett, the British health secretary, who called the spectacle 'deplorable.' Alas, she was referring to something else. She was infuriated 'that the woman hostage should be shown smoking.'"

Cute, as Jonah often is

Charles Krauthammer is upset that those who claim to be keepers of the international order -- he's particularly peeved at the EU -- didn't do much.

What these eminentoes seem to be lamenting most is that the United Kingdom is no longer imperial Great Britain in the glory days. The implication is that Britain is decadent and wobbly these days. An interesting thing for an American to be nostalgic about.

These Americans can't seem to latch hold of the idea that having your chest burst with pride because somebody wearing the uniform of your country killed a few wogs is a kind of pride that has diminishing returns. After all those years of being keepers of the world, most Brits probably feel it's better to leave those unfortunate lesser breeds alone rather than killing them or trying to bring them up to civilized snuff.

Maybe that's not a bad idea.