YO BLAIR!

The most disturbing thing to emerge from the accidental recording of Blair and Bush in conversation at G8, at least for an Englishman, has to be hearing our Prime Minister declaring himself less important than "Condi" Rice, who is a minister and not an elected leader, when it comes to the resolution of international conflict. "I can just go over there and talk," he says to Bush, or words to that effect." If she goes over she has to succeed." And the American President clearly isn't interested in Blair's offer to participate anyway.
We all know that America is the superpower. But whatever happened to the two British stalwarts of pride and arrogance? Blair should not be placing himself in the role of over-eager hanger-on ready to do anything he is asked when he deals with the least intelligent, least effective, most dangerous US president in modern history. In his own country he is famous for his control freakery and his disdain for the democratic process. So why is he stuttering here like he's approaching Humphrey Bogart to autograph his napkin?
Other disturbing things: 1) (and forgive the Englishness), that Bush does not know it's vulgar to chomp snack food with your mouth open while talking to an important guest, and 2) --perhaps even more disturbing than the spectacle of Blair abasing himself--that a man of Bush's age and background uses a word like "Yo". "Yo Blair!" For some reason the idea of that makes me shudder. It exposes him for a vain and swaggering fool with absolutely no sense of irony.
But who's the real fool? At least when Bush goes to bed at night he can do so without the troubling memory of the moment in the day when he voluntarily fed someone else his testicles.