Blumenthal: Blair fatally misread Bush

[BurtWorm]

Reading this essay, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that it was Blumenthal (according to Blumenthal) who introduced the Clintons to Blair before the latter became PM. I wonder if he has a higher opinion of Blair, even now, than Blair deserves.



http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/05/12/tony_blair/print.html

In his relationship with Bush, Blair apparently misread the outward signs of American culture and interpreted them through British eyes. Bush can be so amiable and informal dressed in blue jeans that his manner may be mistaken for openness and cooperation when it conceals a particular type of American class superiority and indifference. Bush, after all, seems so friendly compared with the glowering Cheney, who clawed his way upward. It's not easy for someone who has never traveled in America to grasp the evolution of the Bush family from Northeast patricians to Texas Tories, and the dissolution of the New England character along the way, especially the sense of responsibility, duty and humility.

Bush's amiability toward Blair merely demonstrates his acceptance of the prime minister into his private club. But even if Blair got Bush exactly right in every nuance, the outcome remains the same. (Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Blair's presumed Labor successor, and Bush are a car crash waiting to happen. Bush has an instinctive revulsion against serious intellectuals with little capacity for the locker-room-like banter that is his mode of condescension.)

The underlying events that produced this election result provide a harsh, cautionary and unsettling lesson not only for Blair. British prime ministers to come will take the story of Blair's embrace of a powerful ally's mendacity and Blair's subsequent loss of his country's trust as a warning. Future U.S. presidents will be regarded with underlying suspicion far into the future. By chastening Blair, British voters have applied the only brake they have on Bush's foreign policy. But the damage done to the U.S.-U.K. relationship may have incalculable long-term negative consequences for the world.

[DulceDecorum]

1. Quite frankly

the damage done to the U.S.-U.K. relationship may have incalculable long-term POSITVE consequences for the world.

The US and UK kept slavery going for AGES
after the rest of the planet had stated their open opposition to the practice.
And there is more where that came from.

[orwell]

2. Blair...

is a war criminal. Nothing more or less.

Deal with it Sidney...

[patricia92243]

3. "Subsequent loss of his country's trust as a warning" Blair won the

election. I doubt that he cares that he looses his country's trust.

[Solly Mack]

4. ah, so Blair was fooled too? (coughchokespew)

How dumb do you gotta be to be fooled by Bush?

Seriously.

How motherfucking stupid do you have to be to have been fooled by George Walker Bush?

How incredibly moronic and idiotic would a person have to be to be fooled by Shrub?

And it's either that(brain-dead) or the question is:

How big of a liar are you to even make the claim?



So Sidney wants to claim Blair misread Bush? Go ahead, Sydney, tell us how big of a fool Blair is...please.

Great choice that:

I'm a total brain-dead moron who got fooled by the Chimp

OR

I'm a liar.

[KlatooBNikto]

5. Another interpretation.

Blair's Imperial Genes were stirred by the stroking administered by the calculating American who read Blair correctly.Blair, given a chance, would piggyback on the American War machine to kick some wog ass, a game that he hasn't had a chance to play at for a long time.