Demagogue

I second your emotion, Zoe.

In her post yesterday, Zoe commented on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's public reaction to the infamous pre-Iraq war memoranda. This was one of Blair's observations:

"I am a bit astonished at how this has received such (media) coverage in the U.S. because the fact is, after the memo was done, we went to the United Nations."

But taking your case to the UN matters very little if the so-called evidence you use to argue your case is "fixed." As the original Downing Street memo matter-of-factly states:

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Perhaps Blair is giving us a distinctly British take on ethics: A scoundrel lies to ordinary citizens, but a true gentleman properly and graciously tells his lies to the UN.

Now there's a creed to live by.