ROUNDING THIRD...:

Tony Blair's journey from people-pleaser to statesman (Michael Gove, January 13, 2003, Times of London)

The Prime Minister told us yesterday that his job was "sometimes to say the things people don't want to hear". From a congenital people-pleaser, it was a telling statement, a demonstration that he realises statesmanship involves taking decisions in which there is no difference to split, no happy "third way" between undesirable options. The public, and the press, would very much like there to be a third way of dealing with Saddam which doesn't leave us in danger or involve young men taking ships to a war zone. The uncomfortable truth is, there isn't.

It's almost impossible to imagine Bill Clinton pursuing the difficult course that Mr. Blair and George W. Bush have chosen when it would be so much easier and popular to just back off. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 13, 2003 7:45 PM