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Posted on 01/24/2004 12:38:57 AM PST by ejdrapes
Although the Prime Minister was pragmatic about Mr Bush’s victory, Mrs Blair was far less sanguine about the Supreme Court decision that gave him the keys to the White House. She believed Al Gore had been “robbed” of the presidency and was hostile to the idea of her husband “cosying” up to the new President. Even as they flew to Washington for their first meeting with the presidential couple, Mrs Blair was in no mood to curry favour, the book Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader by Philip Stephens, states. “Cherie Blair still believed that Bush had stolen the White House from Gore,” he wrote. She asked more than once during the journey why they had to be so nice to “these people”. Mrs Blair scarcely concealed her impatience as the Blair team debated on the plane whether the gift he had brought for the President, a bust of Winston Churchill, was of sufficient quality for the Oval Office. They decided to find a better one and that Mr Blair would tell the President it was on its way. Mrs Blair was annoyed at the fuss but was overruled. Another bust was delivered months later. The book’s disclosures of Mrs Blair’s forthright views will cause embarrassment in Downing Street, because of Mr Blair’s good working relations with Mr Bush, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although they will not surprise officials or ministers who know her well. She is known for expressing her views forcefully in private. Stephens writes that Mrs Blair behaved impeccably at her first meeting with the President “for all her outspoken resentment on the flight” and “to the great relief of her husband and aides” she had been at pains to make friends with Laura Bush. But when the Bushes came to Britain in the summer of 2001, Mrs Blair, “more tribal in her politics than Tony”, according to a close family friend, embarrassed her husband. As the two couples sat down to dinner, with the officials no longer there, Mrs Blair could not resist an argument. She is a human rights lawyer and turned to the death penalty, a subject on which she has blunt views. Judicial executions were an immoral violation of human rights, an affront under the US Constitution as much as under European laws to the fundamental principles of justice, she said. This opinion was delivered to a man who as Governor of Texas signed warrants for more than 150 executions. Mr Blair was reported to have “squirmed”, even though he shares her opposition to the death penalty. The author says that when he asked Mr Blair about the incident during research for the book he looked uncomfortable — all he would say was that Cherie had raised the issue but as far as he was concerned the United States and Britain simply had different systems. A Downing Street spokesman said: “She has always had a good relationship with President Bush and has of course discussed many issues with him, including capital punishment. The discussions have always been good-natured.” Stephens also states that later in the evening Mr Bush had been embarrassed by his wife. Laura Bush had made it clear that her views on abortion were a great deal more liberal than his. Mrs Blair, who is writing a book about prime ministers’ spouses, has made her forthright views known several times in situations that have caused alarm at No 10. She issued an apology after saying during a visit to Britain by Queen Rania of Jordan in June 2002 that young Palestinians “feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up”. Last month she said that “Saudi Arabia’s image in the world is appalling” over its treatment of women, in a speech in front of the Saudi Ambassador. Stephens’s book also reveals the coolness shown by Vice- President Cheney in his early meetings with Mr Blair and how Mr Cheney showed his hostility later on to Mr Blair’s efforts to persuade Mr Bush to work through the UN before war against Iraq. He made “occasional, acid” interventions during the crucial Camp David summit and “during the following days and months he would be the constant disrupting force in the Anglo-American relationship”. Stephens adds: “If Donald Rumsfeld discomfited Blair with his public disdain for multilateralism, Cheney sought to undermine the Prime Minister privately.” Stephens is a political columnist on the Financial Times and the paper’s former political editor. His 250-page biography of Mr Blair was commissioned by the publishers Viking to meet an urgent demand from Americans for more information about the Prime Minister and his family. Since Mr Blair became Mr Bush’s closest ally in the war on terrorism he has become universally popular with Americans, not least for his ability to describe al-Qaeda’s threat with an eloquence that the President cannot match. There has been widespread concern among Americans that Mr Blair’s intimate support for President Bush might have damaged his prospects of re-election. The book is published in America on February 5 and is expected to sell well in the Anglophile cities of New York and Washington.
January 24, 2004
2001: the visit when Cherie Blair put her views on execution
Cherie said Bush 'stole' power and tackled him on executions
TONY BLAIR has been embarrassed by his wife’s displays of open animosity towards President Bush, according to a forthcoming biography of the Prime Minister.
Cherie Blair is said to have made no secret of her conviction that Mr Bush “stole” the presidential election, and picked an argument with him over the death penalty during a private dinner.
I love Colin Powell and think him a skilled diplomat. But, as Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe commented right from the beginning of W's first term, he is not confrontational enough to be our Secretary of State.
I've heard several times that she's pro-abortion, just as Barbara Bush is. It was also reported a number of times that during an interview, someone asked Laura if Dubya was a "born-again Christian," to which she responded, "Oh, I wouldn't go that far." This of course doesn't mean he isn't, but it's reasonable to infer that she isn't.
I've never understood how a marriage could thrive when the two partners disagree on such fundamental issues that define the core of who they are. I just don't think I could lie down every night beside my wife if she thought it was okay to slice and dice babies.
MM
I'm no Kerry fan, but it's Clark supporter Moore who calls President Bush a deserter and Clark refuses to repudiate it.
Kerry touts his service ad nauseum so others can draw their own conclusions (fairly or not), and he did decry the terrific carrier landing and has said that he is more qualified to be on a carrier, which is a whole lotta hooey.
Then again, it doesn't really matter what Cherie thinks about President Bush. England's Prime Minister is still our very dear friend, ally and coalition partner.
What lies? Cheney was obviously correct, certainly about the second (never achieved) U.N. resolution. Pursuing that (which we did for the benefit of Blair) only ended up hurting Blair politically. Just as in America, support for the war started to decrease in Britain over time as it was pointlessly delayed by fruitless attempts to appease the French and other Saddamite jackboot lickers.
On the other point, how did Bush "steal" the election when there was never a single vote count that gave (or even would have given) Gore a winning total?
It would have been better, admittedly, if there had been time for a proper judicial contest of the election, but unfortunately there wasn't time because the FLORDIA Supreme Court effectively -- AND UNCONSTITUTIONALLY -- rewrote the election law by changing the explicit dates therein in order to extend the period for Gore's selective recounts (conducted by the county election commission in the prejudicial challenge phase).
But then (deep down) you knew this (or maybe you're an idiot). The Dims screwed the whole thing up themselves: first by challenging, often in court, every piddling decision the county election commissions made about the counting (even though they were Dims, and even though the election law clearly mandated them and only them to make such decisions according to a set procedure they all did their very best to follow), and second, as regards the aforementioned Dim dominated SCOFLA, by monkeying with the clear text of the law instead of letting the matter proceed to judicial contest by the appointed date.
It was Gore, and the Dims, and the Florida Supreme Court, and their collective contempt for the rule of law, that eff'ed the whole thing up. In truth all the Supreme Court of the United States really did was to step in and say "look, you guys eff'd this all up."
And here you are, like a true (infantile) Dim, YEARS LATER, still blaming your own mistakes (and guile) on those who did nothing more than confront you with their reality.
(Just incredible you people are still on about this.)
He "has to"??? REALLY???
Here's what he knows: He doesn't have to send more eyeballs from his web site to our FR forum so that they can read gratuitous, derogatory, insulting comments about him like the one you made.
As far as I'm concerned, I appreciate it when Free Republic is mentioned by either Rush Limbaugh or Matt Drudge and/or linked from their web sites. They are doing us an immense favor that they, by no means, have to do.
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