My eyes popped out on their little stalks this morning when I saw this one:

Don’t blame Tony Blair for talking to a tyrant

If Blair’s phone calls to Gaddafi mean even one less life is lost in Libya they will have been worthwhile

What? Whaaaat?

The evil Precautionary Principle, now applied to Libya’s revolution.

How could anyone write an article of such stupidity?

Splutter.

Then I read the article by Lance Price, to discover that he had not said that at all!

Rather he made a good case for Tony Blair’s role in edging Gaddafi towards something like normalcy, and for being honest about it:

It is possible that Blair’s reluctance to go into detail hid something else. If he was using his influence to offer Gaddafi a way out, some kind of deal that would avoid an even greater blood bath, then he will have done the world a service.

The simple truth – a Blair truth that just happens to stand up to scrutiny – is that when evil people wield power and the ability to unleash devastating forces of destruction, it is both right and necessary to engage with them. Supping with the devil is rarely done for the quality of the fare. But it is done for a reason.

Indeed. Continuing:

If the deal with Gaddafi made the world a little safer and deprived terrorists of some succour, it was a deal worth doing. It was never going to turn him into a "benign" leader, despite Blair’s unfortunate use of that word in his interview. Nor was it going to lead to his removal from power.

It may, however, have had some modest benefits in today’s dangerous situation. Some aspects of Libyan society were opened up to western influences and that might have encouraged the pressure for democratic change. The geography and power structures of Libya are less of a mystery to the British government and its armed forces than they were before.

But the main task, Gaddafi’s removal and his replacement with a regime more worthy of being called "benign", is of a wholly different order

Well said.

While we’re at it, read Anne Applebaum’s excellent Washington Post piece, complete with sensible headline, on how Western leaders have been sucked in to sucking up to rich dictators:

Money, even foreign money (and particularly that Saudi money) has always been able to buy access to Western statesmen. But in the past decade or so, the proportions have subtly shifted. T

he democratic West has become relatively poorer, while a clutch of undemocratic "emerging" markets have become richer. To put it more bluntly, Western politicians, ex-politicians and even aristocrats have become much, much poorer than the very, very rich businessmen emerging from the oil-and-gas states of central Asia, eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Twenty years ago, no retired British or German statesman would have looked outside his country for employment. Nowadays, Blair advises the governments of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, among others; former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder collects a paycheck from Gazprom, the Russian energy behemoth.

The answer? Simple:

If Western governments want to have any credibility in the post-revolutionary Arab world, they need to stop hiring people, even as "envoys," who are already in the pay of current or former Arab dictators.

Blair should resign immediately from his informal negotiators’ role in the Middle East; Prince Andrew should be told to stay home. The Wisners of the world should be sent back into retirement.

Finally, for good measure, the legions of former public officials now in the pay of Chinese, Russian or Saudi businessmen should be kept far away from their previous places of employment, just in case. Come the revolution, you can be sure they will turn out to have embarrassing friends, too.

Hmm. Perhaps. then again, perhaps not.

I wonder how much the next generation of leaders in these countries will really care how close important Westerners were to the wicked lot just ousted.

Isn’t that smug elite jet-setting just the way things work? If so, best to get in on it asap:  

"After all, those Blairs and Schroeders and Wisners and the rest of them are the ones who call the shots at Davos.

And if we aren’t nice to them, maybe we won’t get invited next year?"