As Iraq lurches towards civil war - something that will take the eye off the mounting US death toll - it is good to see that Tony Blair can still rely on his speechwriters to come up with a bon mot. He condemned the mosque bombing as

I'm betting he's hoping that in the next destruction of a shrine they find some human excreta so that he can swiftly amend the above to

Anything to deflect the constant barrage of criticism he gets for supporting Dubya come hell or high water.

One theory for this perverse attitude is that in their cranky born-again vaguely masonic way, Bush is some sort of Supreme Being to which Blair is obliged to abase himself

I don't buy that. The more likely reason that he's the White House's poodle is that he was caught with the White House poodle. And there are incriminating photos to prove it