I've decided that I love Tony Blair. I mean, I really feel for the guy...I hate to talk about class during Spring Break, but we learned about parliamentary gov't in polisci...& man, that guy has cojones. He's so eloquent, articulate...and he acts on his convictions. He also has that great English accent *wink,wink*.



Here's his absolutely spectacular speech to the House of Commons March 18, 2003. Some describe it as the 50 minute speech of his life, where he laid it all on the line. An excerpt:

Tell our allies that at the very moment of action, at the very moment when they need our determination that Britain faltered. I will not be party to such a course. This is not the time to falter. This is the time for this House, not just this government or indeed this Prime Minister, but for this House to give a lead, to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right, to show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk, to show at the moment of decision that we have the courage to do the right thing.

Man, what power, what a great speaker!
Here's what the London Times had to say about his speech & I must say I completely agree. An excerpt:

TONY BLAIR has never made a more difficult speech, or a more important one, or a better one.
Its power lay not in oratorical flourish, or wit, or calculated emotional appeal; it was not smooth, or clever, or contemptuous. It did not hammer home the history and histrionics, or invoke the cadence of the pulpit. The shrugs, the headshakes and the sneer had gone.

Instead it was raw, simple, dignified, and bleak: a promise, a plea, and a warning. It was made by a man armed with words of war, in the certain knowledge that once deployed, they could not be pulled back.

It was a speech quite unlike any that Blair has made before.

The Prime Minister is not, by instinct, a gambler, but yesterday he gravely totted up the stakes, the highest he has ever played for. “We have the Government with its most serious test, its majority at risk, the first Cabinet resignation over an issue of policy.” The outcome, he said, would “determine the pattern of international politics for the next generation”. And the fate of Tony Blair.

Doesn't it just give you the chills?