America's poodle

After Bush & Blair did their song and dance Thursday night, the Beard, Paula Zahn, and other CNN friends provided some analysis. My favorite was Robin Oakley, CNN Sr. European Editor who said, in reference to an exchange in the press conference, about Tony Blair's likely-to-soon-be-cut tenure at 10 Downing Street that, ``He's been under desperate pressure. And I think President George Bush was maybe meddling a little dangerously in British politics there when he said he wanted Tony Blair around so long as he's president''.

Then this good dose of political reality:

BLITZER: Very quickly, Robin, does this visit by Tony Blair to Washington, this news conference, the speeches he's going to deliver at Georgetown University tomorrow, help or hurt Tony Blair back in Britain?

OAKLEY: Without any doubt at all, they harm Tony Blair. Every time he comes over to see President George Bush, he topples another couple of points in the opinion polls. It doesn't get him seen as an international statesman, it gets him seen as America's poodle. And that does him no good with his own party, no good with the British public, as far as this particular president is concerned, Wolf.

Cheeky. I love it.