Compare and Contrast:
Blair's Rising Star Runs Into a Treacherous Future, New York Times,
By Alan Cowell, July 8, 2005
LONDON, July 7 - It is said, usually as a kind of joke, that a day is a long time in politics. Rarely has that been so true - and so bloodily so - as in the past 24 hours of Prime Minister Tony's Blair's roller coaster ride from triumph to tragedy.
On Wednesday evening, as chairman of the Group of 8 major industrial nations summit meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, he led a gathering of the world's political, diplomatic and economic powers, bolstered by the victory he scored that morning, when London was awarded the 2012 Olympics. He had led the charge to turn the annual summit meeting into a pep rally to end poverty in Africa and address world climate change, buoyed by worldwide concerts and demonstrations.
Early Thursday morning, as the leaders there took up the thorny issue of climate change, he continued the diplomatic minuet, meeting with President Hu Jintao of China.
But, even as the politicians talked, aides were watching television images pouring in from London raising the first alarms. When he finished his meeting with Mr. Hu, his aides broke the news, but still there was some confusion, his spokesman said, speaking in return for customary anonymity. Then, toward midday, the doubts were over: London had been struck by terrorists. Mr. Blair flew back to London, somber and shaken.
Perhaps the crudest lesson to be drawn was that, in adopting the stance he took after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Blair had finally reaped the bitter harvest of the war on terrorism - so often forecast but never quite seeming real until the explosions boomed across London.
The war in Iraq has been increasingly unpopular here, with taunts that Mr. Blair had become President Bush's poodle. The anger about Iraq led to Mr. Blair's shaky showing in the May elections: a third term with a severely reduced majority. Now, as long predicted and feared, his support of the war appears to have cost British lives at home. Thursday was a day of rallying behind the leader, but there were indications that the bombing could take a political toll.
No mainstream politician would say so out loud, but George Galloway, the maverick, onetime Labor legislator who had met with Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war, had no hesitation. "We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain," he said. "Tragically, Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings."...
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In Americans, Lurking Fears Rise to Surface, New York Times,
By Paul Vitello, July 8, 2005
Even on a roaring uptown No. 6 train in Manhattan, there is a certain kind of quiet that veteran riders can sometimes sense. And yesterday, when the morning rush seemed almost to shiver in the aftershock of a terrorist attack on commuters in London five hours earlier, was one such time.
It is the quiet of being reminded that one's entire life, if it is lived in any urban area of this country, is a soft target.
"You notice it in the vibe of the train," said Geoff Hoffman, an uptown No. 6 rider who described himself as a painter. "Everyone's brow is furrowed. Everyone's thinking about it. Just look around."
It is usually hard to say what everyone is thinking about, but yesterday you could say it: "It's dangerous to live here," said Craig Fols, an actor. "But I thought this through after 9/11. It's a kind of danger I'm going to live with."
In Chicago, Boston, Miami and San Francisco, people said similar things yesterday, whether with a certain bravado, or on the legs of denial, or from a more tentative resolve. "When I stop to think about it, I don't feel very safe," said Nancy LaMantia, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., business owner. "But then again, on a day-to-day basis, I feel fine."...