Tony Blair Over There: Americans On The Bulldog Of War

ACROSS the Atlantic tears are being shed for Tony Blair. (Picture: Beau Bo D’Or)

“Godspeed, Tony Blair,” wails the New York Daily News, while the New York Post simply sighs “Tony Blair Takes His Leave.”

You see, for all of Tony’s faults - his intellect, his Europeanness, his ability to engage brain and mouth simultaneously - Tony was a great guy.

If only those fool Brits, who according to the News “would rather live under sharia law than English law” could see it.

The New York Sun thought his speech yesterday “an expression of the deepest, most genuine patriotism…Churchill would have understood. If it is unfashionable to take pride in one’s country, then Mr. Blair is unfashionable.”

Ah, Churchill. Blair. Thatcher can’t be far away.

“Blair wisely kept Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies largely intact, and Britain boomed during his first years,” intoned the Post.

“From the first hours of 9/11 through five years of triumphs and frustrations in the War on Terror, Blair stood beside America.”

And America was proud to have such a figure at her side. Blair’s only fault, according to the Post, was his: “unwavering, uncritical support for the European Union.”

How so?

“He never quite understood that the E.U.’s empowerment of bureaucrats in Brussels threatened a representative democracy with roots extending back beyond the Magna Carta.”

But let’s not let Blair’s weakness for Europe cloud his triumphs, most notably his fondness for America.

And lest Post readers should think that Tony’s support for America was in any way Poodlesque, the National Review’s editor Rich Lowry is on hand to set them straight.

“Long before President Bush arrived in the White House, Blair championed the idea that the West should intervene to stop human-rights abuses in other countries, putting morality above respect for the borders of sovereign countries,” says Lowry.

“It wasn’t until after 9/11 that Bush embraced a version of this expansive vision, essentially making him a convert to the Blair view rather than the other way around.”

That’s right, Blair converted Dubya to the “Church of Liberal Interventionism.” And “rather than “Bush’s poodle,” Blair has been a bulldog for his beliefs.”

Anorak

Posted: 11th, May 2007 | In: Anorak In New York Comments (5) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink