Cincinattus

[poliphilo]

Tony Blair misled parliament and the nation and took the country to war on a false prospectus. How is this not a resigning issue?

There's a nightmare quality about it. The evidence against him is overwhelming, no-one trusts him, no-one likes him, but there he is, day after day, smiling that patronizing smile and doing his "I'm just a regular bloke" act. He's as unkillable as the monster in a Hollywood horror franchise.

Living under a dictatorship must feel like this.

Power is a drug. No-one who has it resigns it willingly. But its deleterious effect on character is plain to see. Men and women in positions of power get progressively madder and stupider. The last two prime ministers, Thatcher and Major, seriously damaged their reputations by clinging onto office long after they'd ceased to be effective. And now there's Blair. His reputation is in tatters. But one of the delusions of power is that if you hang on long enough everything will eventually, magically, turn to your advantage.

Cincinattus: He did the job he was appointed to do (defeating the enemies of Rome) then resigned the dictatorship and returned to his farm. That's the way to do it. That's the way to win the gratitude of your people.

Comments

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

Politicians rarely have the sense to quit while they're ahead, but I suppose that may arise in part from the sheer number of hoops they had to jump through to get the job in the first place. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good point. I'd not thought of it that way before.