Blair's Simple Stubborness

The Washington Dispatch ^ | April 4, 2003 | Cathryn Crawford

[Owen]

I've been pleased with Tony Blair. Look in the dictionary next to the word resolve and you will find a picture of GW Bush. Look up stalwart, and there is Tony.

[ricpic]

We live in such an age of hype. Someone's a hero if they brave a snowstorm to get to work.
But when you look at what Blair has gotten through to get himself and his country to this moment; well, for once the word applies.
Let's not forget that he had to "stay the course" with a Labor Party at near mutiny and an approval rating from the British public that fell below 35% at one point. It's been one thing for our President to stand firm in the face of "the international community." He had a united party behind him and high approval ratings. But for Blair, the pressure to fold must have been immense.
Frankly, I didn't think he had it in him.
Truly, this is a case of the moment making the man, and the man making the moment.
Thank you, Mister Prime Minister.

[George W. Bush]

A nice portrait of Blair here, his steadfast friendship to America, a man who knows how to be an ally and who knows how to deal with us and with others diplomatically.

Blair has done more, somewhat unintentionally, to make Britain a world power than anyone since Churchill. Perhaps even more so if he played his cards right in the postware era. Who would have expected it?

[thegreatbeast]

I'm so sick and tired of people wanting, and trying, to cast movies with people they don't understand or know. GW Bush and Tony Blair are good men. That is rare enough nowadays, particularly in the political realm; count your blessings. Not even John Wayne was John Wayne he was Marian Somethingorother.
The wise know that God doesn't choose the qualified; God qualifies the chosen.

[CyberAnt]

Well ... Tony doesn't know it, but he's about to run into an immovable object.

[Stultis]

I've been pleased with Tony Blair.

You might not be so please if you were paying rates (taxes) in Britain. Tony's not bad for a Labour leader (he's a "third way" lib, like Clinton) but he's still Labour. Don't get me wrong, I give him all the credit in the world on the Iraq issue, but if I was a Brit I'd be voting conservative. Don't forget that Duncan Smith and the Conservatives have been solid on the war as well. They could have taken advantage of the situation to bring Blair down, but they didn't. They've opposed him where he's wrong (on domestic issues) and unhesitatingly supported him where he's right (on Iraq) with none of the odious political "positioning" our own Democratic Party has cynically engaged in.

[Stultis]

Ping!

[Reb Raider]

Would you be hinting at the U.N. battle to come on rebuilding contracts and setting up the interim Iraqi govt.? I guess the U.N. thought Pres.Bush was kidding when he talked to them about becoming irrelevant. Oh yes, there are interesting days ahead...

[Brian Allen]

<< I've been pleased with Tony Blair.


You might not be so please if you were paying tax in Britain. Tony's not bad for a Labour Party leader (he's a "third way" lib, like Clinton) but he's still [A totalitarian socialist!]

Don't get me wrong, I give him all the credit in the world on the Iraq issue, but if I was a Brit I'd be voting Conservative. Don't forget that Duncan Smith and the Conservatives have been solid on the war as well. They could have taken advantage of the situation to bring Blair down, but they didn't. They've opposed him where he's wrong [On domestic issues] and unhesitatingly supported him where he's right [On Iraq] with none of the odious political "positioning" our own Democratic Party has cynically engaged in. >>

Blair is a serially-lying, domestic-terrorist-appeasing, British-sovereignty-surrendering socialist monster who, despite having seemed to be a strong and decent man these past few months has simply been positioning himself and his execrable Labour Party thugs to further hasten once-great Britain's demise as he rushes it from the First World and deeper and irreversably into the EURO-peon Neo-Soviet. As that squalidly-socialist and abjectly-corrupt Frankensteinian bureaucracy's satellite state!

[George W. Bush]

Blair is a serially-lying, domestic-terrorist-appeasing, British-sovereignty-surrendering socialist monster who,...

He's still too fond of running to the U.N.; one can hope that Prez W. can help him see the error of that.

As to your other remarks, I would observe that Blair is a practical politician who may be rethinking the entire EU matter. Given his support among the non-Weasels in Old Europe and in all of New Europe, Blair may have recognized the impotence and futility of the EU as a military force (Kosovo before U.S. intervention) and he already opposes the new French federal EU constitution.

As much as any of us might like Winston Churchill today, his early political career was truly loopy and useless. We have to keep in mind that political leaders sometimes grow in office due to unavoidable events. Blair may have a change of heart, having seen that the EU stands for nothing and is powerless and that EU federalization is disadvantagous to British interests. The recent debacle at the U.N. may have opened his eyes somewhat.

We'll know if he's really learned something when we see if he tries to insist bringing in the U.N. and the Weasels on Iraqi reconstruction.

[Stultis]

he already opposes the new French federal EU constitution

This is the only advantage to having a Labour rather than Conservative government in Britain. The conservatives would also oppose the new constitution -- a blatant bid for Franco-German hegenomy -- but would have less credibility with continentals. Blair has a better chance of rallying and leading continental opposition to this monstrosity.

[Stultis]

Blair has a better chance of rallying and leading continental opposition to this monstrosity.

Which, I might add, is one of the reasons for the Frogs' attrocious behavior. They were hoping to bring Blair down. He would either be replaced by a Labour leader more compliant to Froggie machinations, or by a Conservative government that would tend to turn its back on the continent.

[Cathryn Crawford]

If I was English, I too would be voting Conservative; however, that doesn't keep me from appreciating what he's done for us in this current conflict.

[McGavin999]

Nice article on Blair, and he deserves it. His reward will be to go down in history as one of the best British leaders of all times.

Now, if we can just get him to change his mind about the role the UN takes after the war...........

[CyberAnt]

I can hardly wait - beats boring stuff any day.

And ... FOX has on the ticker - Germany and France DEMANDING to have a part of the reconstruction of France. Amazing!

[Brian Allen]

<< [Blair is] still too fond of running to the U.N.; one can hope that Prez W. can help him see the error of that.
..... I would observe that Blair is a practical politician who may be rethinking the entire EU matter..... and he already opposes the new French federal EU constitution.
..... We'll know if he's really learned something when we see if he tries to insist bringing in the U.N. and the Weasels on Iraqi reconstruction. >>

Thoughtful response. We will indeed see.

And my money is that his lunatic-left-wing-fringer's lust for power [The noxious weed that florishes in the vacant lots of empty minds. Like Blair's] will overcome the temporary aberration that has been the cause of his out-of-"character" behavior during the past couple of years.

President Bush, having already, in order to accomodate Blair's gaggle of hats and left-winger's propensity and/or tendency to be all things to all forums [And notwithstanding that a large part of the first twelve months or so of delays were caused by the Cli'ton "administration's" armaments and other military derelections and depletions] stayed Our Nation's Hand way too often during the Post September 11 2001 Era, the last six months at the risk of disaster to America's and Australia's Military Forces -- and knows it.

It has been very refreshing to observe that since we invaded Iraqi -- and particularly at their most recent Camp David meeting -- America's President and Armed Forces Commander In Chief made no bones of spurning all of Blair's usual manipulative importuning that his multi-hattedness [Especially insofar as his various British Labour Party/EU/UN/NATO slights of hand and other shuckin' and jivin' are concerned] be further accommodated.

Blair now has three choices. He may quit politics and get a job. He may quit the Labour Party and begin the long climb up the Tories ladder -- and maybe ever make it past back-bencher.

Or he may continue to be the kind of Labour Party creature whose career depends upon his ongoing willingness to continue to lie to those to stupid to know they are being lied to and/or are to lazy and greedy to care. Doing that will warm his Hitlery-Clinton-esque Marxist wife's cockles and will offer him some kind of ongoing political continuity while he simultaneously plays different versions of socialism's three card monte and simultaneously "guarantees" different outcomes to different audiences in every EUROpeon circus tent.

As I already said, my money [But not my prayers] is on his subduing the aberration that has steered his past few months' behavior, reverting to type -- and doing the latter.

Best ones -- Brian

[Brian Allen]

<< If I was English, I too would be voting Conservative; >>

Not me!

If my ancestors had not long ago already emigrated from that sorry failing socialist state I would emigrate!

For, just as there is no Declaration of Independence, ther is no Constitution, there is no Bill of Rights and there exists no Principle of Individual Liberty [And "Britain" is pretty much what Blair and or any of Britain's effective elected dictators says it is or can force it to be!] there are no Conservatives in England -- and never have been.

The position occupied in the political spectrum by the creature the British call a "conservative" is so far to left of that held by a left-wing American "DemocRAT" as to be incomparable even with one of those!

British "Conservative" Party policies are aimed only at getting control of that increasingly-squalid socialist state's power over all of its "subjects" and of every means of creation, innovation, production, manufacture, transportation,and sale -- and of the "redistribution" [By way, for example of the abjectly failed "national health service"]and other squanderings of the confiscated wealth of the few remaining British creators, innovators, producers, manufacturers and other workers.

<< .... and however, that doesn't keep me from appreciating what he's done for us in this current conflict. >>

Or to US?

The show continues and [Although President Bush has recently, thank God, rebuffed most of his more recent attempts at importuning further collectivist panderings] we have yet to see the end of Blair's three-card-monte-like répertoire.

Best ones -- Brian

[George W. Bush]

And my money is that his lunatic-left-wing-fringer's lust for power [The noxious weed that florishes in the vacant lots of empty minds. Like Blair's] will overcome the temporary aberration that has been the cause of his out-of-"character" behavior during the past couple of years.

Yeah, I think he'll choose Door #3 too. I was just kind of hoping he'd be sensible and learn something from the whole Kosovo/Iraq EU/U.N. fiascos he's been involved in.

[Brian Allen]

As his intellectual and moral twin, Made Girlyboy, Alberto Goreleone, once observed: "A leopard does not change its stripes!"