The long awaited “interview” with Alistair Campbell (obviously with conditions attached) was not, as it should have been, conducted from within the confines of one of Her Majesty’s prisons, or from one of the hellholes in Iraq or Afghanistan to which so many of his victims were condemned without trial. It is one of the many unconscionable facts of our time that this loathsome, self-pitying monster continues to roam free, appearing frequently and without impediment on the BBC and anyone else who will promise not to ask him any questions about the crimes he has committed. People like Jesse Mulligan for instance, who treated Campbell with the kind of reverence usually extended to someone like the Dalai Lama.
I’m preparing a verbatim transcript of the whole wretched 25 minutes, but here’s a quick “highlight” reel of the Guru of Burnley’s timeless wisdom….
1.) Clive Woodward says there are three kinds of people in a team—the warrior, the leader and the talent. “Some people are all three, of course. I like to think I was part warrior, part leader and I was a talent in the Blair government.”
2.) The Alistair Campbell technique for stress release—rubbing the thumb and forefinger together. “It just calms me down, like when I’m at the Iraq inquiry, coming under aggressive questioning.”
3.) He didn’t put Vladimir Putin on the cover of his book—because to do so would imply a positive view of Putin. Campbell admits that Putin has been a success—“if you believe that politics is exercising power.” He had an unpleasant experience with him in the build-up to the Iraq War, Campbell says. Putin just lost it, screaming at Tony Blair. “He was just vicious,” recalled Campbell, with a shudder.
Tough-guy comedian demands yet more violence in Syria
Twenty minutes later, in the pre-show segment for the light chat show The Panel, producer Zoe George brought up Tony Blair’s defiant reiteration that he had done the right thing in supporting the aggression against Iraq, because Saddam would have been worse than Assad, and history would show that Blair and George W. Bush are in fact heroes instead of the mass murderers they appear to be. Mulligan, who obviously feels some sense of embarrassment at failing to confront Campbell, said: “I interviewed Alistair Campbell a little earlier, and I didn’t bring that up with him, unfortunately…”
Blair’s dodgy attempt at self-absolution goaded one of today’s Panelists, Jeremy Elwood, to show just what a deeply moral and thoughtful person he (Jeremy Elwood) is. “Why does it have to be an either-or thing? They got rid of Saddam, which is great, but when are they going to do something about Assad?”
Not one of the other guests in the studio—not his fellow guest Gary Moore, not Zoe George, not host Jesse Mulligan—said a single thing to contest Elwood’s bloodthirsty support for Al Qaeda and the Al Nusra Front.
Lovers of black comedy might enjoy Jeremy Elwood’s bewildered thoughts about Gaza….
Just how depraved is the American political scene? Just look at what this Democratic Party candidate says to impress voters.
“My son Jim fought as an infantry Marine on the bloody streets of Ramadi.”
—- Jim Webb, Democratic Party candidate.
Did candidates for political office in West Germany in the 1950s boast of their sons having fought on the bloody streets of Warsaw, or the bloody streets of Stalingrad, or the bloody streets of Leningrad?
Jesse Mulligan is already apologizing for his pisspoor interview of Blair’s most brutal henchman.
Radio New Zealand National, Tuesday 27 October 2015, 3:10 p.m.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201776237/feature-interview-alistair-campbell
He lacks insight, originality, intellect, courage, wisdom, humour, …
Just look at what this Democratic Party candidate says to impress voters.