Brace Yourself

You may want to eat a light breakfast Friday morning: Steve Inskeep is interviewing Tony Blair. I'll wager a guess that he won't present any of the facts about the growing disaster in the Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East in general and Blair's responsibility for it. Instead any critique will be couched in how "unpopular" the war in Iraq is.

Consider David Greene's reprise of Blair's sleep-over at the White House and the press conference with Bush and Blair in the Rose Garden. Seabrook introduces the story by recalling that Bush and Blair "have stood together through the Iraq war, even as it badly damaged the political standing of each" (if only that were all it had damaged.) Greene picks up on this theme: "...both leaders are of course politically wounded by the growing popular opposition to the war in Iraq." My God, don't you just want to grab Greene by the collar and get it into his head that what matters is not the "popular opposition to the war" (which these two have held in contempt from the start); what matters is the monstrous bloodshed and disastrous events of the past four years and the long term tragedy that will result from their war of aggression.