Blair Inc.

Behold Fiona Capp's review of Blair Inc.: The Man Behind the Mask in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald:

"Few political leaders have provoked as much controversy after leaving office as Tony Blair. Blair Inc. is a combative investigation of the way Blair has gone about 'making himself seriously rich'. The gravest allegation concerns conflicts of interest between his public role as Middle East special envoy to promote economic growth in Palestine and his private commercial interests. The authors argue that Blair's work as envoy has been compromised by his position as an adviser to the bank JP Morgan - whose clients benefited from the two major deals Blair brokered for the Palestinians - and that the Palestinians regard him as Israel's mouthpiece. Overall, Blair emerges as a secretive, self-serving hollow-man. The hostile tone, however, makes it difficult to assess or entirely trust the claims being made."

OK... so Bush's poodle emerges "as a secretive, self-serving hollow man," but the authors of Blair Inc. should have toned down the hostility.

Sure, he may have been complicit in reducing Iraq to the status of a vile, sectarian hell-hole, sending over 500,000 souls to their doom and creating millions of refugees in the process, but hey, that "hostile tone," that's going way too far, guys!

Jeeesus!