WHY BLAIR WANTED KERRY TO LOSE:

Bush, Blair Hold Press Conference (Transcript From FDCH E-Media, Inc, November 12, 2004)

BLAIR: [I] think the president said something here that I really think is very, very important.

In the politics -- when I was first a member of Parliament and making my way up the greasy pole and all the rest of it, there was a view in foreign policy that you dealt with countries on the basis of whatever attitude they had toward you, that really whatever they did within their own countries that was up to them and didn't really make a difference to your long-term relationship.

I think what we are learning today is that there is not stability of any true, long-term kind without democratic rights for free people to decide their government.

Now, that doesn't mean to say we try and interfere with every state around the world, but it does mean that there's been a shift, and I think a shift quite dramatically since 9/11, in the thinking that is informing our view of how we make progress.

That's why it wasn't enough to go into Afghanistan and root out Al Qaida or knock down the Taliban, we actually had to go there and say, "No, we must replace that with a democratic form of government. Because in the end, if we replace it simply with another dictator, then we'll get the same instability back."

That's why in Iraq we decided when Saddam was removed, we didn't want another hard man coming in, another dictator.

Now, it's a struggle because democracy is hard to bring into countries that have never had it before.

But I've no doubt at all that the Iraqi people, given the chance -- and indeed you can see this in some of the local elections now down in the south of Iraq -- given the chance, they want to elect their leaders. Why wouldn't they?

I mean, why would they want a strong-arm leader who's going to have the secret police, you know, no freedom of speech, no free press, no human rights, no proper law courts?

The people want the freedom. What we recognized, I think, today, is that we're not going to have our security unless they get that freedom.

So when we come to the issue of Israel and Palestine, I think, what we are saying is, we are going to work flat out to deliver this. But people have to understand we can't deliver something unless the people whom it affects actually want it to happen.

And we don't believe there will be a viable future for a state of Palestine unless it's based on certain key democratic principles.

Now, I think that's a tremendous thing.

And I also think that in the end -- of course, you're right. People can vote for the people they'd like to vote for in elections, right? That's what democracy is about.

I think we've got to have some faith, though, in the ability of ordinary people and decent people to decide their own future.

Because it's a curious thing, you look at all these Eastern European countries -- Central, Eastern European countries in the European Union now, just democracies over the last 10 years, fierce election debates, changes of government, often difficult circumstances when the governments changed.

But you go to those countries and talk to the people there, and their sense of liberation and their sense of self-worth as a result of the freedom they have, that is the best testament to why it's sensible to have faith in democracy.

And, you know, sometimes when people say, "Well, it's -- you got a Republican president and a progressive politician from across the water," but in my view, people from different sides of the political spectrum should be able to come together to argue that policy case, because democracy is something that should unite us whatever political position we have.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush are not Realists.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 12, 2004 1:12 PM