Battered Blair Bows Out

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 11, 2007 8:02 AM

When I was in London in the spring of 2003, I watched Tony Blair being hammered in the House of Commons over the nonexistent weapons in Iraq, with opposition leader Iain Duncan Smith declaring that "nobody believes a word now that the prime minister is saying." The Sunday Mirror had just dismissed Blair's earlier claims on Iraq as "rubbish."

While Blair forcefully defended himself, he was clearly under a political siege that had not yet spread to the United States. In fact, I wrote at the time, "in a very real sense, the war over Iraq is still being fought here, in contrast to the United States, where neither political party has used the failure to find weapons of mass destruction as a major issue against President Bush."

Much has changed since then, but not the damage to the reputation of Blair, who, as expected, announced yesterday that he is stepping down as PM next month.

At first, Blair was widely admired here as a more articulate advocate for the war than the president whose poodle he was accused of being. Now I think Blair is viewed in the States as a tragic, LBJ-type figure whose decade of accomplishment has been overshadowed by the Iraq mess. Conservatives never liked his New Labor approach, and liberals are too disgusted by Iraq to care about his progressive record.

"Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong, but that's your call," Blair said.

The hostility toward Blair in Britain remains far greater than on this side of the Atlantic. A brief sampling, beginning with British blogger Iain Dale:

"I have to pinch myself that I am listening to this rubbish. This speech demeans Blair. His constant craving for approval is stomach churning. 'I did what I thought was right' he has said -- twice. He sounds as if he is facing a war crimes tribunal rather than making a resignation statement. It was actually very American in tone -- very emotional. Very unbritish, if you like."

Very American--I guess that's a major insult.

In the Nation, columnist Gary Younge says: "Blair is the first British leader to leave without having been ousted by his own party or the voters. In truth, he jumped before he was pushed. Iraq alienated him from his Labour base while a new generation of Tory leader started to win back disaffected Conservatives and woo the center. He had become a liability."

Chris at Americablog is dripping with sarcasm:

"Ahhh, it seemed like only yesterday the young pup was telling lies about reasons for invading Iraq and acting as the leading enabler to Bush. Being an active participant in the blood bath of Iraq not exactly what the world needs in a global roving ambassador and he's detested within EU circles for being Bush's lapdog so whether he likes it or not, he's stuck on the conservative speaking circuit where he can have fun with all of his extreme right crazy friends who still adore him."

A few kind words from Right Wing Nuthouse's Rick Moran on Blair and Bush:

"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:

"Rudy Giuliani (whom I've tentatively supported) is taking a gamble that even Pete Rose would think is too risky. He's going to start making what is being described as a 'forthright affirmation' of his support for abortion rights.

"The big deal here is not that Rudy is pro-choice (which I call 'pro-abortion'). We all knew that. It's that he's now removing the self-imposed shackles he felt he needed to wear when running in the Republican primary and is 'doubling down.'

"He's basically saying 'Look, I'm pro-choice. I'm not going to play word games any more, not going to wink-and-nod to placate a particular group. If you don't like it then don't vote for me. But you know what - I'm betting there are more people who are willing to overlook it than those who won't. And just because you're the most vocal, doesn't mean you're in the majority. I'll respect your opinion, but I won't pretend to agree with it, and in fact, I'm going to come out publicly and say so.'

"Talk about a high-risk strategy. I'm not going to waste time telling you how politically earth-shattering it would be for him to actually get the GOP nomination while espousing a pro-choice view, because you already know that.

"But I think it's a move he had to make. Anyone who watched his tortured answer to the abortion question at the debate, or listened to him on Laura Ingram's radio show (where they talked about nothing else) knows that Giuliani's attempt to deal with the question was absolutely killing him politically."

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum is more dismissive:

"Rudy's only doing this because he knows he really doesn't have any choice. The revelations about his donations to Planned Parenthood took waffling off the table as a feasible campaign strategy. He's screwed and he knows it."

Jonathan Chait: "Giuliani's best appeal to conservatives will be to convince them that he's the most electable candidate. But you can't do that if you lose the first three primaries. By the time February 5 rolls around, he's going to be buried. Indeed, his campaign might not even exist at that point."

But Glenn Reynolds says those who feel strongly about the issue need to think twice:

"THINGS THAT DON'T BOTHER ME: Rudy Giuliani donated to Planned Parenthood? Hey, that's okay. So have I.

"I understand that the pro-life people, and the social-cons generally, are unhappy with this. But hey, a lot of gun-rights people thought that Bush was squishy on the gun issue -- and he has been. Nonetheless, he's been a lot better than Kerry or Gore would have been had they been elected; his support for the assault weapons ban, for example, was extremely limp. Likewise, the social-cons are crazy if they let this sort of thing keep them home on election day in 2008."

Rudy's even got an Oxycontin problem:

"Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin."

A new angle on Romney, from a "60 Minutes" interview with Mike Wallace:

"Romney's wife, Ann, who converted to the Mormon Church before they were married, is also interviewed. When asked whether they broke the strict church rule against premarital sex, Romney says, 'No, I'm sorry, we do not get into those things,' but still managed to blurt out 'The answer is no,' before ending that line of questioning."

I predicted awhile back that Bush and the Democrats would paper over their differences on the war with some vague language about benchmarks, and now:

"President Bush offered his first public concession to try to resolve the impasse over Iraq war spending today, as he confronted new pressure from his own party over the conflict and House approval of a plan that would provide money for combat operations only through midsummer," says the New York Times.

The quote: "It makes sense to have benchmarks as a part of our discussion on how to go forward."

Of course, if those benchmarks don't include any sanctions for failure, how much do they really mean?

How specific should we expect the candidates to be at this stage of the game? The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn wants more rather than less:

"Virtually any Democratic candidate proposing universal coverage can expect such treatment. But Clinton and Obama come into the contest with additional liabilities. As Clinton herself says, she has the scars from the fight to create universal coverage in 1994. (Whether she deserves those scars is another story.) And she's still dogged by the perception that she's too liberal and uncompromising to be president. She's worked hard to dispel that image, but coming up with a firm set of principles on health care reform would surely invite accusations that she's back to her old and supposedly evil ways.

"Obama has a different problem. He has enjoyed a meteoric rise, but a lot of that success reflects his ability to speak in broad, inspiring terms about unity and shared purpose. A realistic health care plan is bound to upset at least some interest groups--and to create some losers, even among voters. In other words, it's bound to offend.

"These liabilities, however, are precisely why we need to hear more from Clinton and Obama--whatever the risks. The great reservation many liberals have about Clinton is whether her experience as First Lady has made her too gun-shy--whether she's too stuck in the mindset of the late-'90s, when triangulation was necessary for political survival, to stretch the boundaries of debate enough to make universal coverage possible. The great doubt about Obama, meanwhile, is whether all that rhetoric about shared purpose and common ground precludes him from taking strong stands that, inevitably, provoke strong opposition.

"The question about both candidates, in other words, is whether they are willing to pick fights."

A very personal post from Time's Jay Carney, who apparently got plenty of reaction to his views on the Edwardses and cancer:

"I've known John and Elizabeth Edwards since I wrote about his Senate race nine years ago. I've always liked and admired them both. And, as I think was clear from a piece I wrote about Elizabeth in 2004, I'm among those who consider Mrs. Edwards every bit her husband's equal, and in some cases his better, as a politician and public speaker. She is also incredibly warm and real.

"I had already spoken briefly to Senator Edwards last night when, during a break in the dinner, Ana [Marie Cox] pulled me into a conversation with Mrs. Edwards. She was, as Ana said, very gracious. She told me she had been upset by what I'd written about their decision to keep campaigning, despite the recurrence of her cancer, but she also said, as her husband has publicly, that she understood why people had different opinions about it. She joked about wanting to slug me, and (with encouragement from Tammy Haddad) balled up her fist and held it up to my chin, laughing as she did.

"A lot of readers disagreed with my article and posts about the Edwards' decision. Others, a minority, had reactions similar to mine. I've thought a lot about it since then. Contrary to what some readers suspect, I have a fair amount of experience with cancer in my family. My mother is a cancer survivor; my two grandmothers succumbed to it, one of them fairly young. My point was never that Elizabeth Edwards should go hide in a room and wait to die just because her cancer had returned. She has more than one option for living a full life. She and her husband chose to continue pursuing the White House. As I've said before but feel even more strongly after talking with Mrs. Edwards about her children last night, I do believe they made the right decision for themselves. At a personal level, that's all that matters. The politics of it will be what they will be."

The Chicago Sun-Times expands the role of journalism to include sushi fraud.

Attention, Imus-bashers: Opie & Anthony just did a routine about sexually assaulting Condi Rice.

"It's all in good fun, since she's a Republican," InstaPundit says with heavy sarcasm. "I predict nothing like an Imus moment here. Because black Republican women deserve it. They're traitors to their race and gender."