Remember Tony Blair, "Bush's Poodle"? An AP story has some mind-boggling admissions by the former British PM at an ethics inquiry into the ongoing press scandal. (They seem to have noticed what is still missing from American media - a realization that the Murdoch media empire is totally corrupt and has been for a long time.)
To make a long story short, Blair essentially let unelected press tycoons shape what policies his government carried out and gave them free reign.
"I took a strategic decision to manage these people, not confront them," he told Lord Justice Brian Leveson, who is leading the inquiry. "I didn't say that I feared them ... (but) had you decided to confront them, everything would have been pushed to the side. It would have been a huge battle with no guarantee of winning."
Leveson's inquiry was set up following revelations of phone hacking at Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, a scandal which has rocked the British establishment and raised questions about whether top politicians helped shield Murdoch — and the media in general — from official scrutiny.
Silly voters - who cares what they think as long as the media tycoons are happy?
Prime Minister David Cameron is also expected to testify before Leveson, whose inquiry was set up last year after it emerged that reporters at the Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid had routinely hacked into the phones of public figure and crime victims.
The scandal has rocked Britain's establishment, leading to the arrest or resignation of dozens of journalists, media executives, political operatives and police, prison and military officials. It's also exposed a pattern of wrongdoing across the British press, from bribery to blackmail.
Read the whole thing, then be grateful nothing like this goes on in American politics....
(Yes, that's snark)