August Kleinzahler

From the London Review dated 17 August 2006

Diary

Tony Blair came over to the US, where some people still like him. He’s getting to look more and more like Steve Bell’s caricature. I liked it better when he was feeling more himself – the evil head boy, half-sadist, half-sycophant. Bush is clearly the better man these days, even if he looks as clueless as the Channel 5 weather lady. The Blair/Bush press conference was revealing. The press, in this instance two members of the British press, laid into Bush, not like our boys here do. You could see the sneer starting to take shape in the corner of his mouth, but he’d left the smirk at home. This was for international consumption. Bush isn’t as stupid as the press, especially the British press, makes him out to be. He looks stupid, certainly, and sounds stupid, but he’s a clever man in his way, and much underestimated. Blair looks and sounds almost hysterical. If one were gently to strike his forehead with a sugar spoon his face would break into ten thousand tiny pieces. [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography