LONDON -- Could Prime Minister Gordon Brown become the Harry Truman of British politics?

For many long months, Brown and his Labor Party were written off as sure losers in this year's election, likely to be called for May 6. David Cameron, the young, energetic and empathetic Conservative Party leader, was all but handed Brown's job by the chattering classes, so consistent and formidable had been his lead in the polls.

There were moments--long moments--during the Iraq war when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture like this in the Arab world turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

Of course, Iraq hasn’t turned out that well. Sunni jihadniks are still routinely murdering pious Shi’a on pilgrimage to Karbala. Still...

British PM Gordon Brown said today that this week's international conference on Afghanistan is likely to endorse an effort at some kind of reconciliation with the Taliban.

--Mark Leibovich on Charlie Crist (who I say is doomed, doomed, at least as a Republican.)

--Sarah Palin's emails

It’s official: Barack Obama will attend the Copenhagen climate conference on December 18, the final day of scheduled negotiations. Originally slated only for a brief stopover at the start of the conference, en route to accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Obama’s change in schedule is making enviros hopeful. Politico called it “a strong signal that U.S.

There were two high points in the career of Tony Blair.

It looks like I underestimated the intelligence of the British public when I said that Gordon Brown's spat with the grieving mother of a dead British soldier was a no-win situation for him.

President Obama designated George Mitchell his special envoy to the Jews and the Arabs because he had experience with them. Of course, Mitchell's familiarity with the Middle East was the familiarity of utter failure. No matter. Obama couldn't have sent George Tenet again ... or, God forbid, Anthony Zinni. And he wouldn't dispatch Dennis Ross, who knows far too much that wouldn't have fit with the president's own delusions.

Another reason, perhaps the decisive reason, for dispatching Mitchell was that he had resolved the "Irish question," dating back all the way to the mid-19th century, or "the troubles," which it has been called since the twenties.

An intriguing article in the New York Times by Mark Landler, whom I slighted unfairly last month, is headlined, "Clinton Has Warm Words for Ireland and Britain." I will get to Hillary's warm words for Ireland below. But what struck me was her "assuring the British that they still had a special relationship with the United States." The U.S. has had a "special relationship" with Great Britain since the War of 1812, save for a few hostile but feeble interventions by London on behalf of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

For one, Prime Minister Gordon Brown couldn't get a one-on-one meeting with Obama either during the General Assembly in New York or at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. But that's just a slight. To be sure, Washington was offended by the sneaky arrangements made by the Labour government with Scotland and the tyrannical Gadhafi regime for the release of the Libyan security official who was responsible for the Lockerbie murder of 270 people, 189 of them Americans.

Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid has officially abandoned Gordon Brown. Alastair Campbell, who as Tony Blair's media guru was instrumental in winning The Sun over to Labor's side in 1997, doesn't think the switch is that big a deal:

Strong advocates of our new G20 process are convinced that it will bring legitimacy to international economic policy discussions, rule-making, and crisis interventions. Certainly, it’s better than the G7/G8 pretending to run things--after all, who elected them?

But who elected the G20? The answer is: No one. And, in case you were wondering, there is no application form to join the G20 (although you can crash the party if you have the right friends, e.g., Spain). The G20 has appointed themselves as the world’s “economic governing council” (to quote Gordon Brown).

Is this a good idea?

So, just one day after Presidents Obama and Sarkozy, together with Gordon Brown, warned Iran that they've determined that"the size and configuration of this [their newly disclosed nuclear facility at Qom] is inconsistent with a peaceful program",the Venezuela

Why has President Obama’s popularity slid over the last few months? One common explanation is that he’s governed in too liberal a fashion--too much big government, too fast. David Brooks makes this case in today’s New York Times. “By force of circumstances and by design, the president has promoted one policy after another that increases spending and centralizes power in Washington,” he writes.

This was a matter of American interest. More than that: it was actually an American matter. And the contempt that Great Britain, particularly Scotland, and Libya have shown the United States in it is a fact with which we must conjure, lest this drama in four parts otherwise define, delimit and demean our very position in world affairs. This is a choice that neither Russia nor China ever seem to face. That is, they never stand down (or seem even to contemplate standing down) from what they deem to be core. Take, for example, Georgia or Darfur, which on any reasonable reading would be far from core.

This was a matter of American interest. More than that: it was actually an American matter. And the contempt that Great Britain, particularly Scotland, and Libya have shown the United States in it is a fact with which we must conjure, lest this drama in four parts otherwise define, delimit and demean our very position in world affairs. This is a choice that neither Russia nor China ever seem to face. That is, they never stand down (or seem even to contemplate standing down) from what they deem to be core. Take, for example, Georgia or Darfur, which on any reasonable reading would be far from core.

Our centrality in this case, however, should be self-evident. Pan American 103 was an American carrier, "Clipper Maid of the Seas," on its way on December 21, 1988 from Heathrow Airport, London to J.F.K. in New York. Of the 270 dead, fully 189 were Americans, two were infants at two months, and one was an elderly gentleman of 82. There were 66 students on board, plus 17 men in the U.S. defense and security services. Ah, maybe one or a few of these folks were the targets of the bombing, you might be saying to yourself suspiciously. But then this would truly be an act of outright war against the United States.

It took eleven years before a trial was held, much of this time spent in odious negotiations with Moammar Gadhafi over a venue. Even Nelson Mandela was brought into the act, as he often is to rescue from justice some miscreant who happened be an ally of the "revolution." In the end, a new facility was actually built for the Scottish High Court of Justiciary on a former American military base in the Netherlands. I kid you not. There, one of the defendants was found not guilty and Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University, has written an eye-opening article for Forbes.com on the legalities and illegalities of the process. Read it, please.

Gordon Brown has now been British prime minister for two years. This is hard to credit, partly because he has not fully emerged from the detachable Peter Pan shadow of Tony Blair, but mainly because he has not yet emerged from his own. He walks in a deep, impenetrable penumbra of his own making.

The G8 summit was obviously disappointing, even for those with low expectations. Usually, the substance is lacking but the public relations are well managed. This year even the messaging was messed up--they said some new things on climate change but not what we were told they could say, the food aid/development package was lamer than advertized, etc. So the whole thing looks like an expensive flop.

But actually it was much worse.

To the unschooled eye, the photograph of the 1987 class of the Oxford University Bullingdon Club could be mistaken for a 100-year-old image. The ten young men crowding the frame are dressed in long tails and blue bowties and pose on marble steps, most of them studiously looking away from the camera. But this is a relatively recent photo of members of the aristocratic, and destructive, drinking club: Participants honor the unofficial motto--"I like the sound of breaking glass"--by getting drunk and trashing private property.

Thanks to news of the worst month for housing starts in 17 years--and despite better-than-expected quarterly returns from a bevy of businesses--the market is expected to drop again today. That said, it's a relatively slow day in the biz biz:

WASHINGTON--Hope versus fear, new versus old: Barack Obama and John McCain have placed their bets. These are the terms on which the 2008 presidential campaign will be decided.

That's why it's unfair for political bystanders to attack Obama and McCain for offering few specifics as to how they'd fix an ailing economy. And it's foolish to ask them to jettison their campaign promises in order to pay homage to the God of Balanced Budgets.

Apart from Austin Powers, there can be few British institutions as groovy right now as The Economist. Der Spiegel has hailed its "legendary influence." Vanity Fair has written that "the positions The Economist takes change the minds that matter." In Britain, the Sunday Telegraph has declared that "it is widely regarded as the smartest, most influential weekly magazine in the world." In America, it is regularly fawned on as a font of journalistic reason.