Blair and Bin Laden are in same tradition, says pundit

[emad]

Blair and Bin Laden are in same tradition, says pundit
By Peter Popham in Rome
08 June 2005


A new biography of Tony Blair published this month in Italy has led to the Prime Minister being compared to Osama bin Laden.

In a review published in La Stampa newspaper, Lucia Annunziata, a senior Italian journalist, said both Mr Blair and Bin Laden were "children of the same element - modernity which ran its course at the end of the century, in the ruins of ideology".

She continued: "For both men, success is the result of the 'courageous' transformation of an honourable but exhausted tradition - and both achieved this transformation through their comprehension and expansion of the use of the media."

Ms Annunziata began her career on the Communist daily Il Manifesto and resigned as president of the state broadcaster RAI a year ago. Speaking to The Independent yesterday, she added: "Both men refused to be co-opted by their traditions, both were very attractive to the young, both are obsessed with the media, have great personal charm and are great tacticians. For both dealing with their father figures was central in their adolescence. Both are shallow, smooth, fascinating, immoral and the product of elites."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=645056

[JAbuchan08]

1. And Bush would make the triumvirate, excepting the fact that his handlers

completed the transformation for him.

On edit: Oh, and I liked the "both men are shallow and in need of bolstering by theoriticians"(paraphrase)