Blair's Legacy

I was driving home to the Al Rantel’s show yesterday, listening to Al and John LeBoutillier work themselves into a lather over so-called mistakes made by Tony Blair. As far as I could tell – these guys often throw off more heat than light – their beef with Blair was that he swallowed Bush’s WMD intell whole (although he – Blair – knew better), so that he – Blair – could go join the US in the Iraq invasion.

Hmmm…. Well, who’s to know the inside of something like that? But does it matter? And what does this really tell us about Tony Blair, the man they were choosing to evaluate in such a jejune manner?

One thing I am clear about is the Blair they were discussing was far from the man I observed in those days. I can hardly remember Blair discussing WMDs in the run-up to the Iraq War. That was never his reason (primary anyway) for advocating action against Saddam. He was always talking democracy, democracy, democracy. He was a believer in bringing rational government to the MidEast and, through that, peace for all of us.

Blair was our democratic idealist and a man of great eloquence. He gave voice to things Bush, and most other American politicians of recent vintage, do not have the skills to articulate. That man has been destroyed and the people who killed him should be ashamed of themselves, ashamed of the envy and cowardice that motivated them. i wonder if LeBoutillier and Rantel realize how small-minded they sounded.