My official position is still that Tony Blair is a very bad man who deployed his considerable political skills on behalf of an addled policy in Iraq, but watching him talk one remembers that a good deal of the bitterness stems from the fact that he's so damned charming and, thus, was able to convince a lot of left-of-center Americans that the policy wasn't nearly as addled as it was.
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Tony Blair
27 Sep 2007 09:51 am
Comments (16)
Define "bad" in this context.
Tony Blair, as far as I can tell, is sincerely motivated by the welfare of his fellow human beings. He differs from other sincere humanitarians in that he is much readier than others to believe that the best way to help is to fight. An Iraq war run by people like that may or may not have turned out very differently, but it is not crazy to believe that it could have. Blair's most blameworthy act was to allow himself to believe that he could advance his liberal hawk aims by aligning himself with and enabling George W. Bush and his fellow vampires.
How do you think the Brits feel? Oh that's right - they kicked him out of office.
His charm is like a sickly sweet candy that tastes good at first, but over time becomes cloying. Am I the only one who finds him too ingratiating, with that shit-eating grin of his?
Admittedly, I'd probably feel different if it wasn't for the Iraq war, and his "Bush's poodle" act.
Measure of badness: do you work for The Carlyle Group after your stint in public office is done? Yes? You stink.
How does 'handed over power to his designated successor' imply 'kicked out of office'?
Jeffrey Davis, I didn't know that about the Carlyle Group. That is indeed damning if true.
He didn't convince anyone who looked objectively at the evidence. Being swayed irrationally by politicians' fake charm is for children.
"He differs from other sincere humanitarians in that he is much readier than others to believe that the best way to help is to fight. An Iraq war run by people like that may or may not have turned out very differently, but it is not crazy to believe that it could have."
Yes it is. Yeah, like we were going to put together a pluralist society in Iraq through force after years of the Sunni minority in the Ba'ath Party oppressing the rest of the country. Britain had nowhere near as many troops as we put in and we didn't even come with enough troops.
One of the things lefties forget about Blair, d/t the (totally justified) rage over Iraq and being "Bush' poodle," is that he pushed some very progressive domestic policies in Britain, including an ambitious plan to cut child poverty in half. I'm not saying that excuses the hideous Iraq policy, just that all the data needs to be included when judging the man.
It appears the Egyptians cut a deal with Saddam before the invasion that he would exile to saudi arabia with a billion bucks and some WMD papers, but Bush refused the offer.Tony Blair was right by his side.
Juan Cole has an excellent post on this today.
Oh that's right - they kicked him out of office
huh?
Blair is actually Marilyn from the Munsters. The attractive one who actually represents the horror of Western Life, particularly, the Western habit of murdering Third World People under the lie of liberation.
I like Blair much more than Clinton. Blair is the one public figure who I really changed my mind about.
At first I really detested his pushing of the Clintonian "Third Way" and its neoliberalism lite. I was always suspicious of "Cool Brittania."
However he talked Clinton into doing something about the Balkans. In 1999 he gave a speech in Chicago saying coexistence with dictators like Saddam Hussein was impossible as well as undesirable. He took so much crap and shrugged it off. He helped work out things in Northern Ireland too.
Re: It appears the Egyptians cut a deal with Saddam before the invasion that he would exile to saudi arabia with a billion bucks and some WMD papers, but Bush refused the offer.
Assuming the Egyptians had the money themselves to offer, what could Bush do to stop the deal? All Saddam and to do was hop on his private jet and take off for wherever. Like Baby Doc and Idi Amin he'd be basking in happy retirement today, and while Iraq would still be a mess, it might not be quite so ghastly a mess.
Comments closed October 11, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
but what's your unofficial position?
Posted by paperpusher | September 27, 2007 10:11 AM