Walter Mitties of World Politics

A perceptive piece in the Hamilton Spectator makes the point that Blair seems increasingly disconnected from everything: country, government and party. As the editorial puts it, "On domestic affairs and foreign policy he has become an almost ceaseless source of grand speeches, setting out his philosophy and his aspirations for all the world as if he wasn't part of the government at all but a lone warrior on a personal crusade."

This week the point held true both geographically and ideologically, as he flitted around the world making speeches and racking up the frequent flier miles. Like an old man who escapes a nagging wife by busying himself in the garden shed, Blair has found that the great outdoors provides a convenient escape from domestic concerns. There he can be noble, heroic and visionary, avoiding the pettiness of party funding scandals, conspiring colleagues, or NHS reform.

Of course, Blair is not the only one undertaking such escapades. Bush also prefers to make speeches about Iraqi democracy before he makes them about American democracy, while most other world leaders prefer to make speeches about American democracy (or its deficits) before they talk about their own democracies (or lack of them). As we have argued here before, these ethical tangents avoid politicians being judged on outcomes and instead on what motives lie behind their actions.

A vicious cycle has begun to emerge. Our politicians "retreat" into the international sphere, because the issues of the domestic sphere appear far too intractable to resolve. Yet, the problems of the international sphere are in fact much less susceptible to the actions of our leaders than the issues they face at home. But oddly that lack of conrol they exhibit over their international escapades appears only to further the trend. As Iraq, for example, seems further then ever beyond Allied control, the initial impulse is only reconfirmed. Bush and Blair instead have to move to ever higher levels of abstraction, or fantasy, in their discussions of world politics, avoiding even the concrete issues of their initial interventions. There they live in a world of their own, battling for good against evil, and abandoning the rest of us to the problems of everyday life.