Tony's Doing a Heckuva Job

In a way, Tony Blair's enduring, horizonless devotion to George W. Bush is touching. Via the Independent:

Tony Blair has admitted that he is changing his views on combating global warming to mirror those of President Bush - and oppose negotiating international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol.

His admission, which has outraged environmentalists on both sides of the Atlantic, flies in the face of his promises made in the past two years and undermines the agreement he masterminded at this summer's Gleneagles Summit. And it endangers talks that opened in Ottawa this weekend on a new treaty to combat climate change. . . .

Sharing a platform with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in New York this month, Mr Blair confessed: "Probably I'm changing my thinking about this", adding that he hoped the world's nations would "not negotiate international treaties".

This contradicts his assertion in a speech a year ago - which drew a private rebuke from the Bush administration - that "a problem that is global in cause and scope can only be fully addressed through international agreement".

It also denies what his ministers claimed to be his main achievement on global warming at Gleneagles. He had succeeded in getting all the leaders except Mr Bush to sign up to negotiating a successor to the Kyoto treaty, and in arranging a meeting between the G8 and leading developing countries to discuss it.

But instead of endorsing agreed limits on the pollution that causes climate change, Mr Blair told this month's meeting at the Clinton Global Initiative that he was putting his faith in "developing science and technology" - precisely Mr Bush's position.

Someday, we'll learn precisely what Blair has received from this one-sided relationship. Until then, we can only follow the principle of Occam's Razor and assume that W. gives a stellar rim job.