Some say it’s natural optimism that makes the Americans so different from the British, and some say it’s a lack of cynicism. Either way, our cousins over there have long had difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction, and are forever finding ways to make their public life look like the action movie that always ends well for the hero, or the TV series in which some of the good guys turn out to be bad but the really good guy lives to fight another season.
The ultimate expression of this national naivety — for that’s surely what it is — occurred on 1 May 2003 when President George W. Bush, apparently in imitation of Bill Pullman’s ‘President Whitmore’ in the Hollywood blockbuster Independence Day, appeared costumed as a fighter pilot on an aircraft carrier to announce ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq eight years and 4,000 American deaths ahead of the final troop withdrawal.
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