or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
November 18, 2006
Funniest Blair Statement Yet
Tony Blair is a funny man:
[Blair] was challenged by Sir David that the Western intervention in Iraq had "so far been pretty much of a disaster".He replied: "It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq?
"It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al-Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."
Yes...there are many things you can plan for in war, but one thing for which it is impossible to plan is anyone fighting you.
Posted at November 18, 2006 12:36 AM | TrackBackIt was the philosopher Neetchy, I believe, who wrote about the will to poodlehood.
Blair’s many biographers have pored over his life’s choices to reveal the figure of a grey and essentially conventional lawyer, with little aptitude for management, poor inter-personal skills [I'm not sure about this bit; most accounts I've heard have Blair down as personally charming, if utterly shallow - not that it matters] and deep ignorance of the outside world, who frequently evokes religious faith as a substitute for rational thought. This is one of his two most unusual characteristics. Blair is not an ordinarily religious man; he is by many accounts a ‘religious nut’, a ‘New Ager’, a man who obeys his own inner voices and takes scant notice of religious authority.Posted by: J. Alva Scruggs at November 18, 2006 04:07 AM
I used to kind of admire Tony Blair because I had a deep psychological need to think that at least some of our world leaders aren't crazy. I like to think I've matured beyond that now.
BTW, here's how Tony planned for the war:
...Six of Britain's leading experts on Iraq trooped into No 10 Downing Street on a Tuesday afternoon in November 2002, determined to warn Tony Blair that occupying the country would be difficult at best and catastrophic at worst...
Another said: "I was staggered at Blair's apparent naivety, at his inability to engage with the complexities. For him, it seemed to be highly personal: an evil Saddam versus Blair-Bush. He didn't seem to have a perception of Iraq as a complex country." He recalled that the Prime Minister had interjected only occasionally and cryptically. At one point he had exclaimed: "But he [Saddam] is evil, isn't he?" Later Mr Blair said of Saddam: "But he's got choices [over being good or evil], hasn't he?"
Posted by: Cal at November 18, 2006 05:18 AMBy jove, who'd have imagined that those Iraqis would fight back -- it's not cricket!
Now the war's gone all pear-shaped, and we're slit up a treat.
Those Iraqis must be barmy!
Posted by: Vast Left at November 18, 2006 08:54 AMTo think that this man went to school with Rowan Atkinson.
He ain't the Black Adder...he's freakin' Melchett!
Posted by: En Ming Hee at November 18, 2006 08:57 AMJ. Alva, kinda sounds like the Pope when he ignores Jesus' teachings and tries to sound like a modern Aquinas, with the difference being that the number of gays stomping around on the head of a pin have displaced the whimsical angels.
Posted by: Jesus B. Ochoa at November 18, 2006 10:08 AMAnd if it hadn't been for those damn Russians, Stalingrad would have been a howling success for the Vaterland and Fuehrer.
Always something.
Little men in big gummiments.
Perhaps Blair should have read the proclamation that Pvt. Charles Dickens peeled off a Baghdad wall nearly 90 years ago...
Posted by: sk at November 18, 2006 11:38 AMBlair:
"there's a deliberate strategy ... to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."
Someone please remind me: what did public opinion polls in Britian in early 2003 have to say about the "will of the majority for peace"? And wasn't Blair part of a minority of two, full of the "will for war"?
