Mourning the Socialist Within
It’s a pretty safe bet when reading the expression “soaring rhetoric” (without accompanying quotation marks) that said rhetoric glides smoothly over reality, hovers above sense (but does not alight), and drifts pass reason. See Ted Kennedy’s 1980 Democratic Convention speech for the model.
I would argue the same warning label should apply to a “visionary speech”:
At the beginning of Tony Blair’s political career, his Tory opponents gave him the nickname “Bambi” because of his fawn-like appearance. Now at the end of his 10 years as prime minister, Blair is mocked in Britain as America’s “poodle,” a slavishly loyal supporter of George Bush and the Iraq war.
Blair had a bit of both animal instincts, deer and dog, but he also had the brilliant political gifts that might have made him a truly great prime minister and the defining politician of his era. That’s what makes his story so sad: This immensely talented politician was devoured by Iraq — and by his support for an American president he kept thinking, wrongly, he could dissuade from mistakes.
Watching Blair deliver a farewell address to the World Economic Forum in Davos last weekend, it was impossible not to think of what might have been. He gave a visionary speech about the values of global interdependence that will be necessary in the 21st century if the world is to survive.
I would like to have heard that speech because I can’t see the values of “global interdependence” from the top of a ladder with binoculars. But my quarrel isn’t with Tony Blair, who got most of the big things right (Iraq, Kosovo, severing Labor’s socialist ties). It’s with his eulogist. The “poodle” tag is old, mate. Needs to be put down. Was he Clinton’s poodle, by the way? That’s one lap I would not want to jump into.
People see in Tony Blair what they want to see: slayer of socialism, or socialist still at heart. That’s part of Blair’s weakness. He didn’t define himself, so much as define what he wished he were: all things to all people. I suppose he was devoured by Iraq, as was Bush—both after winning re-election. I think there was mutual distrust with Blair and Bush, but over time they came to see the world remarkably similarly. Blair’s job is done; he’s interviewing for the next one. Bush has a little further to go.