"Yup. IMO, it enabled him to reach out to the Tory voters and MPs and play them against the disaffected lefties who didn't think he was radical enough."
But no Tory voters actually voted Labour on that basis, mainly because the Tory policies (in foreign policy terms) were exactly the same.
So there was no votes gained by Blair for following the foreign policy that he did, but definately some lost in 2005 (and a few specific seats) due to Labour voters defecting to the Lib Dems/indpendents.
"And victory or not, Tony was definitely facing quite a bit of unhappiness from within his own party."
Not in the time period you reference. I mean, apart from the hardcore left wing dinosaurs, but they always hated him. And he always treated them as utterly irrelevant.
"At any rate, he definitely was a Billie and Hillary butt-boy, which made his instantaneous conversion to Bushman quite ironic"
Not really. In Blair's world view, his support of US foreign policy under Bush is a logical extension of and entirely consistent with his support of US foreign policy under Clinton. It is essentially pragmatic rather than ideological.
"Plus, plus, I hate the guy, OK?"
And so say all of us.
Plus, plus I really really frickin' hate the guy, OK?