This just in, Tony Blair says the difference between al-Qaida and the IRA is how many people they’ve killed.

“I don’t think the IRA would ever have set about trying to kill 3,000 people,” [Blair] said.

Ah, Tony. Tony, Tony, Tony. I used to like you, man, but you’ve lost your way. I know the “special relationship” is very important to you, and you really want the UK to become a world power, but playing Harley Quinn to Bush’s Joker really isn’t working for you anymore. And it’s not just the red and black suit and nasal voice (fetching as they are). No, you’ve hitched your wagon to the wrong horse, my friend, and your legacy will be an unjustified war. You could have been the Superman of the European Union’s Justice League, but now, you’re Aquaman at best. And frankly, that might be overshooting it. You might be one of the fish that Aquaman occasionally rustles up to help fight trouble.

But I digress. Was it just on Friday that I was talking about the IRA decommissioning vis-a-vis the London bombings? Blair is playing politics here, pure and simple. He wants a win with peace in Northern Island, and he can’t risk alienating the IRA by comparing them to al-Qaida. I mean, nobody likes al-Qaida. Those guys are asshats.

BBC has video of the press conference, including my favorite part:

Blair: September the 11th, for me, was a wake-up call. *pause* Do you know what I think the problem is? *pause* That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again.

Added Blair, “Then they sort of tossed and turned for an hour, finally got up and made some coffee and toast, got dressed and headed to work. But that’s not the point. The point, you see, was they’d forgotten all about September 11th? You see?” There was another brief pause, in which Blair tugged at his collar and muttered “tough room” under his breath.

You know, despite all of this, I still have a soft spot for the guy. I mean, in some ways I admire his stance in stating that suicide bombing and terrorism is completely unjustified no matter where it is (a view I’ve expressed before), but making distinctions between the IRA and al-Qaida based on number of casualties is naive, disturbing, and somewhat grotesque. I mean, hey, the London bombings only had 52 casualties, and on one day in 1979, the IRA killed 22 people. So, I guess the IRA is not quite half as bad as al-Qaida. I’m sure that’s quite a relief to all the families of people who’ve died in terrorist attacks.

Anyway, I might be a little punchy today from lack of food, which could explain the plethora of Justice League references, but I stick by my main point. Whatever that was.