Lateblogging Tony Blair

No laptops allowed in the hall meant no liveblogging. (And, for a slapstick-filled hour, the changing rules books but no bags, nothing held in your hands, newspapers but no magazine supplements to the NYT, and finally, books allowed again necessitated several trips off the line back to my dorm. Thanks ever so, Scotland Yard.) Below are my thoughts on Blair's speech:

First: Blair is a consummate showman. Anyone who watched this interview without knowing who he is would assume he was a well-known actor or author, rather than a politician. Again and again he chose to go for the laugh line, rather than the applause line in his responses to questions. He was well-spoken and utterly at ease in a manner that seems foreign to American politics. While Obama and other politicians may be comfortable in interviews because of lengthy prep work, they (and the audience) are always aware of the (high) stakes. Blair seemed to have lowered the stakes to a more relaxed, Oprah-like level, never becoming flustered or too intense.

On to policy:

It figures that Yale put the Iraq question in the mouth of the student, the person Blair is least likely to take seriously. Blair doesn't regret his actions in Iraq, but never once does the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" (let alone "Downing Street Memo") escape his lips. Blair's ultimate objective is setting up a viable counter-narrative to that presented by extremist, anti-modernity Islam. Since he explicitly stated that this goal can not be achieved solely by applications of violence, the obvious question was: Why did Iraq become the front line of this narrative-war? Why was violence necessary there, but not other countries (like, oh, Saudi Arabia)?

These questions were neither asked nor answered.

Overall: Entertaining, but not particularly enlightening.