"Could be," Bush said, at first intending it as a quip. But then, growing serious, he looked skyward for a moment, shook his head, and added somberly, "I don't know."
But he went on to fervently defend the man who had stood by him more steadfastly than any other European leader, even as British journalists suggested that Blair - who steps down June 27 after 10 years in office - was already irrelevant and his image lastingly darkened by his support for the president's war in Iraq.
"You don't understand how effective Blair is," Bush said, breaking in reproachfully to address a British reporter. "When we're in a room with world leaders and Blair speaks, people listen."
Blair, the president went on, was a "clear strategic thinker" with the "patience and resolve" to have helped broker a Northern Ireland peace accord.
The embrace was mutual, though Blair, perhaps sensitive to critics' depiction of him as a Bush "lapdog," was at first a bit restrained in expressing it.
"You have been a strong leader at a time when the world needed strong leadership," he said. "You have been unyielding, and unflinching."
There was some substance to the news conference, and to the visit. Both men expressed deep frustration over the violence in Darfur; Bush emphasized, in deference to Blair's passion for the issue, that he took climate warming seriously; Blair, in return, said that any plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions needed to involve China and India; and the president spoke feelingly of another Blair priority, addressing the "deep humiliation" of the Palestinian people.
But a persistent theme, pressed by British journalists, was whether Blair had erred disastrously by coupling his political wagon so closely to Bush's, and whether the close U.S.-British ties would loosen under Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.
Blair, shrugging off the criticism, remained firm.
"I have taken the view that Britain should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with America after Sept. 11; I have never deviated from that view; I do not regret that view."
"I would take the same position of alliance with America again," he added. "Yes, I would."
The president and the prime minister spent much of Thursday dealing with matters Iraq-related.
Blair said he believed the United States and Britain would remain staunch allies on Iraq under Brown, who underlined that position Thursday in comments in London.
But Bush replied angrily when a reporter asked whether he should already be dealing with Brown, whom the Labour Party settled on Thursday as Blair's successor.
Blair was anything but irrelevant, Bush said. The prime minister would play a key role at the Group of 8 summit meeting next month in Germany.
"He's going to sprint to the wire," he said.
Still, he added: "Can I work with the next guy? Of course."
Blair's departure will leave an already weakened Bush without his best friend in Europe, and without his closest ally on Iraq.
Other "best friends" might emerge. Bush has appeared comfortable with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; and France now has an unapologetically pro-American president in Nicolas Sarkozy, in contrast to the chilly ties under Jacques Chirac. But neither seems likely to have as comfortable a relationship with Bush as Blair did.
That relationship, as useful as it was to Bush, took a devastating political toll on Blair.
David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, once described Blair as a "slavish" bond to the White House.
Brown seems unlikely to be as vigorous a defender of the Iraq war. Nor does he have the personal charisma that lubricated the Bush-Blair relationship.
Blair's constant defense was that close relations to the American president would give Britain greater clout to mold U.S. policies. Blair aides said, for example, that he had helped nudge Bush to embrace the so-called road map for Israeli-Palestinian peace. But he had less luck on other issues, including global warming.
Both men, a bit stiff at the outset of the news conference, appeared to draw energy, and humor, from each other as it went on.
Blair, referring to the distant shouts of protesters, said, "I can't make out the words that they're shouting over there, but I bet they're not totally complimentary to either of us."
"Wait a minute," Bush interjected. "I don't know about that."
Blair concluded with an impassioned defense of the tough decisions both have had to make.
"Of course, they're difficult," he said. "And we took a decision that we thought was very difficult. I thought then, and I think now, it was the right decision."
Bush then said: "What I know is the world needs courage, and what I know is this good man is a courageous man."
source:International Herald Trebune
