Battered Blair Bows Out

"The two made something of an odd couple although they complemented each other beautifully. Bush as the blunt, outspoken and emotional leader while Blair played counterpoint as the suave, sophisticated and often eloquent partner. Where Bush's defense of his policies sometimes fell flat, Blair's ringing endorsement of the war and the necessity for it made it seem at times that he was the senior member of the partnership."

In Slate, Geoffrey Wheatcroft says Blair's record includes "steady economic growth combined with low unemployment and inflation, not to mention the great orgy of self-congratulation after a power-sharing administration has just been set up in Northern Ireland . . .

"Blair is leaving office more widely disliked and distrusted than most prime ministers for many years. No one doubts Blair's skills, but many people do think that he has indeed been a failure, above all in terms of what he once promised.

"All through Blair's career, there has been a fascinating contrast, or dissonance, between appearance and reality, words and deeds, rhetoric and achievement . . .

"We remember the 'dodgy dossier' and the other fraudulent claims made before the war--and Blair's subsequent refusal to apologize for them. We remember the horrible way the Blair junta 'outed' as a source Dr. David Kelly, a distinguished government official, who then killed himself, and the way the junta nearly destroyed the BBC for reporting that the intelligence had been 'sexed up' to justify the invasion.

"Then we remember the 'Downing Street memo,' which later came to light, written in great secrecy for Blair's eyes in July 2002 and confirming that, with a decision for war already taken in Washington, 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.' Not sexed-up, just fixed. Those words might be Blair's epitaph."

Ah--an angle I had overlooked! The Telegraph's Alice Thomson on Cherie Blair:

"She has become the most disliked woman in Britain.

"Denis Thatcher was loved as a national icon. Norma Major was treasured for keeping her left-over cheese gratings in the deep freeze. But Cherie is seen as having no redeeming features. She is the grasping career woman, the wife who can't say no to a freebie.

"When she buys her shoes on eBay, she is chastised as miserly; when she borrows Cliff Richards's house, she is sponging off the rich. Early on, when she tried to do the mumsy bit and talk about her favourite recipes and knitting patterns, everyone laughed."

And how did I miss this: "She may have gone too far when she mentioned to the Sun that he liked sex five times a night - but she was only trying to help."

Here at home the Rudy fallout continues, with Bull Dog Pundit reacting to what the NYT says will be the former mayor's blunter approach to one of his chief liabilities: