Blacks in Blackburn

Rice Tours Land of 4,000 Potholes

Glenn Kessler in the Post: If nothing else, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice learned why the Beatles once sang about the 4,000 potholes here.

Rice on Saturday spent a second day touring the town made famous in a Beatles song for its "4,000 holes," still dogged by protesters opposed to the war in Iraq. As she met with a small group of Muslim leaders in Blackburn's town hall, the raucous shouts of the 300 demonstrators outside could be heard through the windows. The leaders said they gave her an earful on U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Rice's tour guide was British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who represents Blackburn in Parliament and who had visited Rice's home town of Birmingham, Ala., last fall. The idea behind the gesture was simple -- to get beyond the stale meetings of diplomats in foreign capitals and learn more about each other's countries and common histories. Birmingham had once been the heart of the Confederate south; Blackburn was a one-time boom town in the 19th century as its textile mills churned out garments made of imported cotton picked by Southern slaves.

But the visit appeared to have reopened old wounds about the Iraq war. About a quarter of the population is Muslim, and many of the protesters appeared to be of Muslim descent. They carried signs calling Rice a war criminal and denouncing the "war on Muslims." A planned visit to the town's Masjid-al-Hidayah mosque was canceled because of the protests.

Locals say there is little mingling between the Christian and Muslim populations. Some have even given Straw the pejorative label of "Black Jack" because they believe he tilts too much toward the Muslims.

Ah, Britannia--reliably racist, if nothing else. Scary thing is compared to the rest of Europe, it's actually progressive.

Can you imagine an American politician with a label like that? Burned Rice? Yellow Bush? Brown Bloomberg? Pretty clear we're separated by more than a common language in this case.

Even if we're both obsessed with municipal services, the 60s and the Beatles.

The British press has had a field day with the controversy, dredging up every possible Beatles cliche about Rice's "Magical Mystery Tour." The Times of London ran an editorial cartoon of Rice and Straw holding up a hole-ridden sign labeled "The Case for War." The caption said: "The four thousand holes of Blackburn, Lancashire."

The expression comes from a lyric penned by John Lennon titled "A Day in the Life," in which he sings "I heard the news today, oh boy, 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire."

After Rice appeared stumped when a reporter Friday asked her about the lyrics, Straw explained that the roads were once rather poor in Blackburn, and Lennon had seen a newspaper article about a man "with a clipboard" who had counted every pothole in the town.

Rice smiled at every turn and seemed unperturbed by the fuss, prompting one British journalist to dub her ability to quickly turn on the charm "Insta-Rice." She argued that "the protesters make my point -- that democracy is the only system that allows people to be heard and be heard peacefully."

Straw, a supporter of the Iraq war who had been a liberal activist in his youth, said he "was not embarrassed in the least" by the reception Rice has received in his district. He noted the anti-Rice organizers had promised to bring in "busloads and busloads" of protesters but failed to do so.

"I didn't think they did very well," Straw said, adding "If they'd asked me, I could have done better for them."

Letting her guard slip a little, Rice injected, "I'm glad they didn't ask you."

AP photo and caption of Jack Straw with Condoleezza Rice holding up a Blackburn Rovers shirt bearing her name by Matt Dunham.