The Platitudes of Reconciliation

Funnily enough The Office of Tony Blair has been updated.

A few words on the recent escalation of violence?

Perhaps some advice?

No. The news is "Tony Blair to teach at Yale University"!

News that Blair "sees potential for peace deal in 2008" relegated to the archives.

Even funnier, the web site provides us a link, at the bottom of the latest news. The link leads us to Yale and the headline: "Prime Minister Blair to teach at Yale"!

Further on, the same article reminds us that "Prime Minister Blair" has "demonstrated outstanding leadership in these areas and is especially qualified to bring his perspective to bear".

The areas being: "how religious values can be channeled toward reconciliation rather than polarization".

It's a funny world.

With consultancies at investment bank JP Morgan and financial services giant Zurich and a deal with Random House for his memoirs (thought to be worth about £5m) Blair will be busy.

I wonder how many lessons he will attend in person...

Anyway, these platitudes reminded me of Obama and a debate I'd heard earlier on political rhetoric and how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem to be at odds on the subject of eloquence, oration and rhetoric.

Clinton suspicious of the positive power of rhetoric, Obama following in the footsteps of Tony Blair, always keen to associate eloquent oratory with good thinking and virtue - an index of character.

Not wanting to sound too suspicious of political rhetoric, one of the examples mentioned in the debate as perhaps the greatest defender of eloquent prose and oration, Cicero, was deeply agnostic, ended up a stoic and was eventually assassinated by Marc Anthony, to whom he had professed passioned speeches.

There's nothing wrong with fine prose and eloquent orators. On the contrary.

But using emotion to energize citizens, so that problems can be swept aside don't appear, at least to me, like an acceptable or safe course of action. Perhaps I don't believe in citizens' politics and would rather leave it to the politician to sort out.

If only they could be trusted.

(P.S. To make it less abstract, here's what I just spotted; the way in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel proves there's no need for polished oration in order to strike a good balance between words and deeds. Germany was not impressed with the manner in which Mr Medvedev was chosen as Russia's next president, and was the first to say it out loud; today, Merkel was the first to visit the new President in Moscow to whom she relayed the message that even if things would not be easier with him, she hoped they would not "become more difficult either". German efficiency I suppose. Naturally, so that we wouldn't forget who the real baddie is, Putin said "I do not think our partners will have it easier with Medvedev". A different type of eloquence...)