Donald Rumsfeld Really Angry (or Maybe Really Happy?) About Tony Blair's Medal Freedom

"Idiot! That Medal of Freedom is rightfully mine!"

What to Expect When You're Expecting to Lose

Writing in the U.K.'s Times Online, Daniel Finkelstein stares across the great pond with eyes on the impending Republicalypse…

The Republicans have already begun fighting in advance of their expected defeat next week. One rival is predicting what another rival will say, a third is blaming a fourth. All are expecting to duke it out in the national spotlight the moment CBS calls it for Obama.

So allow me to explain to these Republicans, from personal experience, that something altogether more painful is going to happen…

The pain of not mattering anymore, of being excluded from the conversation (as I'm sure many a liberal has experienced). And Finkelstein isn't just speculating. He's been there.

He was a campaign staffer for the Tories when they got smacked senseless by Tony Blair and the Labor Party in May of 1997…

There was a feeling of euphoria in Britain that morning, a feeling of freshness and change. Even people who hadn't voted for Blair were caught up in it. Many of them wished that they had, and his poll rating soared. Much of the good feeling about new Labour was generated in the months after their landslide, oddly, rather than in the months before it.

And here's the lesson for Tories. The hardest thing to absorb was this — we didn't matter.

For the first time in years the story wasn't about us, and our squabbles and intrigues seemed oddly silly and pointless. And we, especially those of us who had worked on the losing campaign, felt excluded from a great national party. It was a little bit like sitting in the gloomy train Woody Allen films in Stardust Memories, while in the happy train everyone is popping champagne corks.

In light of Tony Blair's scandalous affair with George Bush in romantic Fallujah, it may be hard — especially for younger voters — to imagine anyone actually being excited about Tony Blair or the kind of change he might bring. But that was a different time. And he was a different Prime Minister back then.

Just goes to show you how quickly political fortunes turn.

It might not be too many election cycles from now that we're all clamoring with excitement to purge the Democrats from office and start fresh. Most likely after they provoke that war with the nanobots by overtaxing the shade of orange on which they subside.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Appear on The Daily Show Thursday

…as the sixth current or former head of state to face down Jon Stewart, giving us a golden opportunity to re-post this semi-remotely related clip.

Roll Call: Cracked Wide Open

• Hackers treat voting machines like we treated your mom last night.

• Newt Gingrich predicts spike in anger amongst racist misogynists.
• Prime Minister Gordon Brown still using Tony Blair's note cards.
• Sam Brownback wanders fairgrounds asking for change, leftover hotdogs.
• Columnist/pundit Robert Novak gets some good news.