What Bush Owes Blair ("IT'S PAYBACK TIME")

[truthpusher]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/weeklystandard/20050603/cm_weeklystandard/whatbushowesblair_1

What Bush Owes Blair
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Irwin M. Stelzer
1 hour, 35 minutes ago
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IT'S PAYBACK TIME IN WASHINGTON. Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, is coming to town to discuss the state of the world with President Bush: His steadfast support of Bush and America in Iraq entitles him to more than a friendly photo-op. Blair paid a heavy price at the polls for that support, and now has a parliamentary majority so reduced that some are calling for him to step down in favor of his chancellor, Gordon Brown. Which Blair will do sometime in the next four years, but, if he has his way, not before he realizes his ambition of creating "the enduring 21st-century welfare state."

But it is not only to reward Blair for facing down the Franco-German axis on Iraq that Bush has to offer tangible recognition. The president has to demonstrate to other nations that alliance with America begets a gratitude that goes beyond thank-you visits and speeches. After all, it is widely known that Poland and other countries that defied the dominant European powers to side with us are very unhappy--no contracts for Iraq's reconstruction, no trade advantages, nothing that the leaders of these countries can parade before their voters, most of whom opposed sending troops to Iraq.

It is safe to assume that the two men will spend little time sympathizing with the plight of Jacques Chirac, who is reeling from France's massive vote against the E.U. constitution. Or shed a tear for Gerhard Schröder, who seems to be headed for rejection by Germany's voters this fall. Blair's views of Chirac cannot be printed in a family magazine, and Schröder's anti-American, anti-Bush campaign still rankles in the White House.

Indeed, Bush and Blair might permit themselves a bit of a gloat, both having been reelected, along with Australia's John Howard, while voters are preparing to retire the leaders of the Franco-German antiwar, pro-Saddam axis.

complete story:

[arcos]

1. pro-Saddam axis??

Schröder's anti-American campaign??

:wtf: whatever... :eyes:...

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. Yes that leapt out at me too

To use such phrases like that - at best it's lazy journalism, at worst it's partisan hackery.

[LiberalVoice]

2. "Franco-German antiwar, pro-Saddam axis."?

suuuuuuuuure.......

[MisterP]

4. this is how fascism proceeds, it seems

[hatrack]

6. It's the Weakly Standard - you were expecting Medea Benjamin, perhaps?

SOP for that trashwagon of a publication.

[othermeans]

3. Maybe a new collar for the poodle? n/t

[proud patriot]

7. Who wants to bet bush ups the aid going to Africa after the visit

:shrug:

[Sandpiper]

8. The Weakly Standard is a Murdoch rag

And a propaganda organ for the right.