So much for the special relationship, part 2

Following on from John Simpson's critique of the "special relationship," post-Iraq invasion, Salon's Sidney Blumenthal also gets stuck in to the issue. Echoing Simpson, Blumenthal adds his conclusion about the result of last week's UK election:

The underlying events that produced this election result provide a harsh, cautionary and unsettling lesson not only for Blair. British prime ministers to come will take the story of Blair's embrace of a powerful ally's mendacity and Blair's subsequent loss of his country's trust as a warning. Future U.S. presidents will be regarded with underlying suspicion far into the future. By chastening Blair, British voters have applied the only brake they have on Bush's foreign policy. But the damage done to the U.S.-U.K. relationship may have incalculable long-term negative consequences for the world.

Blumenthal also has a few choice words for Gordon Brown. Newsweek might indeed portray Brown as a fan of America, but Blumenthal suggests Bush wouldn't be a fan of the current Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown and Bush, he suggests, "are a car crash waiting to happen. Bush has an instinctive revulsion against serious intellectuals with little capacity for the locker-room-like banter that is his mode of condescension."