Cherie [Blair] said Bush 'stole' power and tackled him on executions

London Times | January 24, 2003 | London Times

[ejdrapes]

January 24, 2004

2001: the visit when Cherie Blair put her views on execution

Cherie said Bush 'stole' power and tackled him on executions

By Nicholas Wapshott in New York, Philip Webster and David Charter

TONY BLAIR has been embarrassed by his wife’s displays of open animosity towards President Bush, according to a forthcoming biography of the Prime Minister.

Cherie Blair is said to have made no secret of her conviction that Mr Bush “stole” the presidential election, and picked an argument with him over the death penalty during a private dinner.

Although the Prime Minister was pragmatic about Mr Bush’s victory, Mrs Blair was far less sanguine about the Supreme Court decision that gave him the keys to the White House. She believed Al Gore had been “robbed” of the presidency and was hostile to the idea of her husband “cosying” up to the new President.

Even as they flew to Washington for their first meeting with the presidential couple, Mrs Blair was in no mood to curry favour, the book Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader by Philip Stephens, states. “Cherie Blair still believed that Bush had stolen the White House from Gore,” he wrote. She asked more than once during the journey why they had to be so nice to “these people”.

Mrs Blair scarcely concealed her impatience as the Blair team debated on the plane whether the gift he had brought for the President, a bust of Winston Churchill, was of sufficient quality for the Oval Office. They decided to find a better one and that Mr Blair would tell the President it was on its way. Mrs Blair was annoyed at the fuss but was overruled. Another bust was delivered months later.

The book’s disclosures of Mrs Blair’s forthright views will cause embarrassment in Downing Street, because of Mr Blair’s good working relations with Mr Bush, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although they will not surprise officials or ministers who know her well. She is known for expressing her views forcefully in private.

Stephens writes that Mrs Blair behaved impeccably at her first meeting with the President “for all her outspoken resentment on the flight” and “to the great relief of her husband and aides” she had been at pains to make friends with Laura Bush.

But when the Bushes came to Britain in the summer of 2001, Mrs Blair, “more tribal in her politics than Tony”, according to a close family friend, embarrassed her husband. As the two couples sat down to dinner, with the officials no longer there, Mrs Blair could not resist an argument. She is a human rights lawyer and turned to the death penalty, a subject on which she has blunt views.

Judicial executions were an immoral violation of human rights, an affront under the US Constitution as much as under European laws to the fundamental principles of justice, she said. This opinion was delivered to a man who as Governor of Texas signed warrants for more than 150 executions.

Mr Blair was reported to have “squirmed”, even though he shares her opposition to the death penalty. The author says that when he asked Mr Blair about the incident during research for the book he looked uncomfortable — all he would say was that Cherie had raised the issue but as far as he was concerned the United States and Britain simply had different systems.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “She has always had a good relationship with President Bush and has of course discussed many issues with him, including capital punishment. The discussions have always been good-natured.”

Stephens also states that later in the evening Mr Bush had been embarrassed by his wife. Laura Bush had made it clear that her views on abortion were a great deal more liberal than his.

Mrs Blair, who is writing a book about prime ministers’ spouses, has made her forthright views known several times in situations that have caused alarm at No 10. She issued an apology after saying during a visit to Britain by Queen Rania of Jordan in June 2002 that young Palestinians “feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up”. Last month she said that “Saudi Arabia’s image in the world is appalling” over its treatment of women, in a speech in front of the Saudi Ambassador.

Stephens’s book also reveals the coolness shown by Vice- President Cheney in his early meetings with Mr Blair and how Mr Cheney showed his hostility later on to Mr Blair’s efforts to persuade Mr Bush to work through the UN before war against Iraq. He made “occasional, acid” interventions during the crucial Camp David summit and “during the following days and months he would be the constant disrupting force in the Anglo-American relationship”. Stephens adds: “If Donald Rumsfeld discomfited Blair with his public disdain for multilateralism, Cheney sought to undermine the Prime Minister privately.”

Stephens is a political columnist on the Financial Times and the paper’s former political editor. His 250-page biography of Mr Blair was commissioned by the publishers Viking to meet an urgent demand from Americans for more information about the Prime Minister and his family. Since Mr Blair became Mr Bush’s closest ally in the war on terrorism he has become universally popular with Americans, not least for his ability to describe al-Qaeda’s threat with an eloquence that the President cannot match.

There has been widespread concern among Americans that Mr Blair’s intimate support for President Bush might have damaged his prospects of re-election.

The book is published in America on February 5 and is expected to sell well in the Anglophile cities of New York and Washington.

[ejdrapes]

Does he normally link to articles on FR? I never give a link to the LT website because it's subscription only for non-Brits.

[BruceS]

While you are right that Mrs. Blair was the hostess at the time, do YOU start arguments with guests you invite into your home? The way I was raised, you were very polite to guests (family was another matter), almost to the point of letting them do almost anything. You just didn't invite them back if they didn't behave politely.

By the way, they were not in Mrs. Blair's house at the time. They were in the official residence of the Prime Minister of Great Britian - kind of like the White House. Would the First Lady (any first lady) be right in deliberately being rude to an official guest in the White House when they were not in the living quarters? I think not.

[Lazamataz]

Zot material.

[Stultis]

(Side note: We don't read about the other side--what President Bush said---in the liitle argument about capital punishment. I imagine he responded that America leaves it up to the individual states to decide that issue.)

I don't get a chance to talk to a lot of Europeans, and I've only discussed this topic with three (two Brits and one German). I don't know how representative this sample is, but all three had little or no prior understanding of Federalism, and found the principal rather shocking when it was explained. It just didn't seem to make any sense to them that crucial matters of governance would not be decided at the national level. (Thank God I live in America!)

[cajungirl]

I liked your post. You are entirely correct. And insightful. Enjoy your day on your horse as the opposition here seems to think we all ride around on horsies. He doesn't know some of us own BMWS and some trucks but hey, if he wants to see us as cowboys, let him. That has intrigued me, the fact that the opposition sees most Freepers as cowboys. Interesting.

[Bluntpoint]

Lazamataz
Since May 21, 1999

Another May of 99 imbed mole.

Beware!

[kingu]

First I've heard of Drudge doing it in quite some time.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Socialism is a women's disease.

Boortz makes that point on his radio show, or at least often has (I don't find myself listening as much as I used to, since I've found FR scoops him on news). He'll make comments like "we should repeal the 19th Amendment to stop socialism" and such. And I think he is 3/4ths serious when he says it.

While there are some wonderful conservative women out there (I'm married to one, and have met several through FR), I think you premise is largely true.

[RAY]

Stallone said, "Socialism is a women's disease." Sorry to say Stallone, in most cases you are right!!

[Clifdo]

YEAH, I AM UTTERLY, SATISFYINGLY AMAZED!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bluntpoint]

Socialism and cramps go hand in hand!

[cajungirl]

I don't know about that.

[Admin Moderator]

Zotted. Thanks.

[Maigrey]

Yikes! Maybe she needs a history lesson on American voting protocols.

[RAY]

In the above picture, it appears Laura sees through the holier than thou "lady".

[lilmsnoitall]

The "Electoral College" was the fault that got us into this mess, an antiquated law (much like most of the left over British Commonwealth junk in Asian law) that should have been discarded after losing it's relevance. We are dangerously close to being caught up in the same old game of choosing a candidate because he looks good, and his wife is supportive and submissive. The most impressive thing I have witnessed in this good old boy(?) race is Judy Dean stating that she has a life and a career. This says to me that she does not wish to take on the role of surrogate mother to a country of thumb sucking dependents. As for Cherie Blair, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, their right of opinion is theirs. For a little fictional paradigm shift for those of us that vote, let's say the prez's wife will be the Vice President, now who would you cast your ballet for? Sorry, but you Brits felt the same way about our forefathers, we mixed it up in America, no real blue blood left. That at the present time is not our main issue, only a smokescreen to divert from the real issues of having our Constitution and basic rights upended.
Cheers

[Bluntpoint]

Really? All I see is Tony grabbing his wife's breast!

[alnick]

Laura Bush had made it clear that her views on abortion were a great deal more liberal than his. Comments?

Laura's opinion on abortion is irrelevent. She doesn't consider herself co-president. :-)

[Mad Dawgg]

"The Drudgemeister links to YOUR post at FR!"

Hi Matt, keep up the good work and say hi to Ann for me!

Mad Dawgg

[cajungirl]

I just read Founding Brothers, the John Adams Bio and am now reading American Sphinx about Jefferson. Europpeans don't have the same problem we had at the dawn of our country,,the vast size and the disparate regions. We had all these colonies, all different, all established by pretty strong people. Plus even at the beginning, our founders were looking west and south and thinking that one day the entire Americas would be US. So the idea of a central government determining all things was pretty impractical. Plus Jefferson and his Republicans were pretty much anti government anyway. But a small country, as most Europeans countries are, might make sense to have a central government. These countries also had Kings and Queens and their tradition was centralised authority.