By Elizabeth D. Dyson, Guest Contributor
Upon David Halberstam’s recent untimely death, journalists of all stripes wrote enthusiastic eulogies, reminisced about his courageous reporting, and praised all over again his landmark book “The Best and the Brightest.” Halberstam had forever changed the face of journalism, they wrote, and in “The Best and the Brightest” he had unflinchingly exposed the failures of the top, brilliantly educated figures in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who helped embroil America so deeply, and irrationally, in the quagmire of Vietnam.
Sadly, not even “best and brightest” people occupy leadership posts in the Bush administration today -- “bright,” perhaps, but certainly not “best.” But what about the American press? Shouldn’t far more of our best and most prominent writers and commentators be willing to follow Halberstam’s example by exposing weaknesses and faults in world leaders who are all too commonly thought to have a “bright” reputation?
Not, it seems, when it comes to Tony Blair.
Many informed observers believe that Tony Blair is one of the few people, along with Colin Powell and George Tenet who might have changed the course of history had he stood up to, and exposed, George Bush and Dick Cheney and their manipulation of intelligence in making the case for pre-emptive war. Jimmy Carter, for example, told BBC Radio on May 19 that Blair’s support of Bush was “Abominable. Loyal. Blind. . . . And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world.”
But what “liberal” commentators in the American mainstream press have bemoaned the fig leaf Blair provided for Bush’s preemptive attack on Iraq, or otherwise pointed out Blair’s faults and deceptions upon his recent resignation announcement? Who has written forcefully about Blair’s misleading of his own people, not to mention the world at large, with respect to the “45 minute” claim, not unlike the administration’s “mushroom cloud” claim on this side of the Atlantic? With the exception of a passing mention by Maureen Dowd, who else has highlighted the clip played over and over on British TV in which “Blair said Saddam had W.M.D. that could be activated in 45 minutes”?
And which American journalists have pointed out what British newscaster Jeremy Paxman on the Charlie Rose show on May 15, 2007 described as Blair’s “Manichean” disposition to view a complex world only in terms of black and white, right and wrong -- disturbingly similar to the “with us or against us” views of the current crusader-occupant of the White House? Who has recalled for us the infamous Downing Street memo, in which George Tenet’s counterpart returned to Britain in July 2002 after speaking with CIA Director Tenet and reported to his superiors that the decision to go to war had already been made, and the intelligence and facts were being “fixed” around the policy?
“Blairism . . . a brilliant balancing act”?
Here’s E.J. Dionne, Jr., devoting the only column he’ll probably ever write about the legacy of Tony Blair, to bland, ivory tower pronouncements: “At its best, Blairism, like Clintonism, was always a brilliant balancing act . . . .On so many . . . issues, Blair asked the right questions, and my hunch is that even critics to his left will find themselves building on what he achieved.”
“Building on what he achieved”? How about mentioning what Blair destroyed? No word at all about the 45-minute WMD claim. Nothing whatsoever about the reported discussion between Bush and Blair about bombing al-Jazeera (for which two men in Britain recently received jail sentences for releasing secret information as discussed by Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman on May 11). No mention of the Downing Street memo, despite the fact that the Washington Post didn’t even think it important enough to report on at the time of its discovery, and Post readers didn’t even learn about it until the Post’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, wrote a column two weeks later sharply criticizing the omission – after being bombarded by readers’ e-mails.
Mr. Dionne gives Mr. Blair a free pass on all of these matters --compounding the fact that they were seriously underreported at the time they occurred-- choosing instead to engage in a bland academic discussion of Blair policies having nothing to do with the war.
Sadly, E.J. Dionne, Jr. is not alone.
Anne Applebaum, also writing for The Washington Post, May 15, 2007 devotes an entire column to “The Riddle That Is Blair,” but cannot bring herself to criticize his judgment or deceptions. The thrust of her column: “He has been called a success, a failure, lucky, unfortunate . . . . Fundamentally, the man’s character is a riddle.” Applebaum ends her column by saying that Tony Blair’s character will occupy future biographers “[n]ot because the question has political implications any more, but because it is a genuine mystery.”
No “political implications”?
Ms. Applebaum's last sentence demonstrates precisely why the blandness of commentators and their refusal to expose and condemn Tony Blair’s dangerous deceptions and misguided policies may help pave the way for exactly what Ms. Applebaum denies -- namely, a political future for Tony Blair.
Moises Naim, in the May 13 Outlook Section of the Washington Post, picks up the thread for a Tony Blair political future by writing that Blair is the only “foreigner who seems genuinely to be in the running” for president of the World Bank. Jim Hoagland continues the narrative, writing in the May 13 Post: “Failure is too harsh a term . . . to apply definitively to Blair, whose career on the international scene is not likely to be at an end.”
No, Blair’s career is not likely to be at an end -- and that is partly because all those writers in the mainstream American press who occupy “bully pulpits” unavailable to the rest of us, writers who had a chance to reflect on Blair’s role in helping to orchestrate under false pretenses what some have called the “supreme international crime--a war of aggression,” simply copped out.
It’s more than just copping out; it’s helping, actively, to lay the foundation for the continuation of a disastrous politician’s career, just as story after story about weapons of mass destruction eventually became accepted and led many people in this country to endorse invading Iraq.
David Halberstam, I think, would not be pleased.
Elizabeth D. Dyson is a Washington, D.C. attorney and writer who worked in private and government practice, including the General Counsel’s Office of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.