james t kirk

My impression of Blair is that he is what any country needs in a politician. He is well spoken, intelligent, and knows how to keep a party in line for the most part.

You are quite correct about W, he seems obsessed with Iraq, and seems to not care or understand about economics, especially, the impact deficits can have, although LD does have a point that US politics is a beast.

Watching the entire war thing unfold on the tube, I hardly believed a word Bush said, but it was Blair that had me wondering. Why did he back Bush on this. I am still not really understanding that one.

I can buy the "moral" angle, i could never buy the "Iraq is a threat to the US or the world" angle

Here is a link to the Globe and Mail's write up last week on Tony Blair. It's a fascinating read

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...ery=tony+blair

Here's one of the most interesting bits from the article....

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But the post-Iraq Tony Blair is also, by several measures, the most successful and valuable politician in the world right now. Never in recent history has a politician seemed so adept at playing the three-dimensional chess of political risk and opportunity. Other politicians seem barely able to choose between principle and expediency, or to offer citizens even a crayon sketch of either.

Mr. Blair, on the other hand, is engaged in a vertiginous high-altitude dance in which opportunity is delicately balanced against principle. Most astonishing was the contrast between U.S. President George W. Bush's attempts to explain the war -- a dull reiteration of the phrases "weapons of mass destruction" and "war against terrorism" -- and Mr. Blair's version. He set out his case in a series of speeches with Churchillian resonances, stepping around those justifications and offering a moral argument for humanitarian military intervention.

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With the whole war in Iraq thing I was very conflicted.

I never bought bush's arguements, i think it's wrong to kill people, the CNN thing disgusted me - people watching downtown Baghdad in real time getting bombed and thinking it was a video game. Those were people getting killed.

But, Saddam was a murdering piece of shit, I am glad he is gone. That was the one good thing that came out of this war. The one real thing. I only hope they don't merely replace him with another despot.

There are no weapons of mass destruction, even if there were, they were no threat to the US.

I remember watching Chretien on the news saying that he opposed "regime change", and it made me sick to listen to that crap. That - regime change, is the only good thing that has come out of this.

I respect Tony Blair.