Tony Blair sits quietly as Liberian president defends law criminalizing homosexuality
Former English Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken his share of beatings here at S&R, and I’m grateful to my colleague Wufnik for periodically reminding us all what an invertebrate git Wee Bambi is. In the grand scheme of things (you know, helping his Mac Daddy George Bush invade Iraq, resulting in the pointless deaths of … well, the estimates vary, but range as high as a million-plus, many of them civilians) today’s news is piddling, but it nonetheless confirms what we have long known about Teflon Tony.
The Nobel peace prize winner and president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has defended a law that criminalises homosexual acts, saying: “We like ourselves just the way we are.”
…
Sirleaf told the Guardian: “We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve.”
Liberian legislation classes “voluntary sodomy” as a misdemeanour punishable by up to one year in prison, but two new bills have been proposed that would target homosexuality with much tougher sentences.
Blair, on a visit to Liberia in his capacity as the founder of the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), a charity that aims to strengthen African governments, refused to comment on Sirleaf’s remarks.
…
With Sirleaf sitting to his left, Blair refused to give any advice on gay rights reforms. He let out a stifled chuckle after Sirleaf interrupted him to make it clear that Blair and his staff were only allowed to do what she said they could. “AGI Liberia has specific terms of reference … that’s all we require of them,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning back. [Emphasis added]
Blair, a former champion of human rights for gays did, however, strike back by looking “visibly uncomfortable” while swallowing his tongue. Which is odd; his extended tenure as America’s Poodle afforded him years of experience being smacked around by anti-human rights tinhorns, so you’d think sitting quietly in the presence of the unspeakable would be right in his comfort zone.
(By the way, that woman has a Nobel Peace Prize? What, are they selling them at Walmart now?)
Fucking peachy. Well, there’s no point in me treating Blair with more respect than he treats himself, so hey, Tony, when you’re through boot-licking the gay-bashers in Liberia get your ass up here to my place. My truck needs washing.
lullaby pit 
It’s disappointing that Sirleaf Johnson would take this position, and it’s certainly not got anything to do with peace. She has some thinking to do, not least of all because of her status as a Peace Prize Laureate, but the most important thing at this point is probably not her but the younger generation.
Your critique of Blair is right on target. He could have made much more of a point than he did, to put it mildly.
I was against last year’s Peace Prize award, but not against Johnson Sirleaf. Instead, I thought the award diminished the contributions of women. If you’re interested, have a look at “The Nobel Peace Prize’s problem with women” at http://bit.ly/GAHarR.