Blair

The hottest ticket in town isn't for Andrew Lloyd Webber's upcoming sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera" or Lady Gaga in concert. It's for a one-off performance this Friday starring one of the most loved and hated of British celebrities: Tony Blair. No doubt summoning all the charisma and powers of persuasion he can muster, the former prime minister is scheduled to appear before an official inquiry examining how Britain, under his leadership, signed up for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The new Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams'"A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Broadhurst Theatre has one thing that distinguishes it from its predecessor productions -- it's performed by a cast of mostly African American actors. Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker portray Stanley (first name only) and Blanche Du Bois in Williams' hot-house drama set in the French Quarter of New Orleans.Daphne Rubin-Vega plays the long-suffering Stella and Wood Harris plays Mitch. Emily Mann, who is the artistic director the McCarter Theatre Company in New Jersey, directed the production.

Defending the most controversial decision of his career -- if not his life -- former British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared Friday that he had no regrets over going to war in Iraq, calling it the right decision in a post-Sept. 11 world and one he "would take again." For more than six hours, Blair gave a stout defense of the war before an investigative panel whose proceedings were televised nationwide in a riveting moment of political theater. Britons who ditched soap operas and game shows to watch their former leader submit to a prolonged public grilling saw Blair insist that he tried to resolve the standoff with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein diplomatically, that he made the best judgment he could and that the Iraqi people are better off for it. "I had to take this decision as prime minister.

Over a short period in 2003, the New York Times' Jayson Blair scandal transformed the sometimes mundane business of news gathering into Shakespearean drama, in which the folly of one low-ranking servant shook a kingdom to its core. If that feels like a fanciful reading of the incident -- in which the reporter, as you may recall, was accused of plagiarism and fabricating stories, touching off a crisis that led to a shake-up of the paper's top editors -- it didn't seem that way to playwright Gabe McKinley.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction. "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat," Blair told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast this morning. It was a startling admission from the onetime British leader, who was President Bush's staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Britain's role in the war in Iraq is one to be proud of, a defiant Alastair Campbell told the ongoing Iraq Inquiry on Tuesday. During five hours of questioning on the decision to invade Iraq along with the U.S., Campbell, who was Tony Blair's communications director in 2003, put on a robust defense of his boss at the time, insisting that the British prime minister was not President George W. Bush's "poodle." Campbell told the independent panel that Blair had been convinced by intelligence sources that Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons could be unleashed within a 45-minute time frame.

Re "Blair knew better," Opinion, and "Blair blew the 'special relationship,' " Opinion, May 16 In bemoaning the legacy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Ronald Brownstein and Ian Kershaw ironically lend support to President Bush's and Blair's decision to oust Saddam Hussein without the support of the international community. Brownstein cites the importance of the United Nations in the Balkans, and Kershaw points to Kosovo in 1999 -- merely two examples of that august body's fecklessness, as exemplified later in restraining Hussein's blatant defiance of that body, only to be encouraged by rampant corruption in the oil-for-food program.

Re "There's talk of Blair as a Mideast envoy," June 21 State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair is passionate about the issues of the Middle East and has played a constructive role in the international systems on these issues. He fails to say just what are Blair's accomplishments in making the Middle East less volatile and more hospitable in the decade he occupied the high office in Britain. Blair may be passionate about Middle East issues, but I do not detect any passion for him by the people of the Middle East.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair opened a Commonwealth summit Friday by calling on its members to raise the banners of democracy and economic freedom around the world. As the 54-nation grouping of mainly former British possessions faced criticism for its reluctance to punish Nigeria for flouting human rights, Blair told leaders representing a quarter of the globe that the Commonwealth was needed more than ever today.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair can claim a victory in Iraq's decision to destroy the Al-Samoud 2 missiles (March 2). If not for the military threat Bush and Blair posed, it is difficult to imagine that Saddam Hussein would have backed down. Now it is up to the United Nations to ask, "What about all those chemicals that need to be destroyed?" If Bush and Blair were to start withdrawing forces, does anyone believe that Hussein would destroy the balance of the missiles?

Actress Selma Blair has listed her Sunset Strip-area house at $1.78 million. The single-story home, built in 1922 and updated to a contemporary look, features white wood floors, walls of glass and fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom. Its nearly 3,000 square feet include three bedrooms and 31/2 bathrooms. The gated property, surrounded by tall hedges, has a patio area for outdoor dining and a koi pond. Blair, 41, starred last year in "Darkhorse" and "Replicas.

Reporting from Calgary, Canada - The dominating offensive team - so to speak - had a sizzling four shots on goal in the second period. That would be the Ducks, doubling the total of the Calgary Flames in the second. Thankfully, the pace picked up Thursday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome. A bit. Still, the scoreless game destined to go to overtime did just that. The Flames capitalized on a Ducks breakdown and center Blair Jones scored at 1:51 into the extra session when he converted his own rebound, giving Calgary a 1-0 win and handing the Ducks their first loss in four games.

Frustrated in its bid to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the international group known as the Mideast quartet is pushing both sides to submit detailed proposals for borders of a Palestinian state and measures to ensure Israel's long-term security, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday. Blair, who serves as envoy for the quartet — consisting of the U.S., Russia, the European Union and United Nations — will discuss the latest approach during separate meetings Wednesday in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Grand designs Mary Blair worked her artistic magic on various Disney projects during the era of the Nine Old Men, the studio's legendary animators. 'It's a Small World' Blair created the colorful designs of this popular Fantasyland ride that debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair. 'Cinderella' Blair's designs captured the fun, fantasy, love and sadness of the beloved fairy tale in the 1950 animated version. 'Peter Pan' Blair's concepts for the 1953 animated version of the classic brought London and Never Never Land to life.

There were the Nine Old Men, Walt Disney's famed founding animators, and then there was visual stylist Mary Blair. Along with such legends as Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Wolfgang Reitherman, Blair worked on the studio's animated features for more than 20 years — the only woman to have such a prominent role at Disney. "She influenced the tone of the picture with her use of color and design," said Michael Giaimo, art director on Disney's 1995 "Pocahontas" and visual development artist on 2004's "Home on the Range.

Throughout the making of Paramount Pictures' "Paranormal Activity 2," an unsettling specter floated over the production. The apparition had nothing to do with the earlier haunted house blockbuster a micro-budget thriller that exploded into a pop-culture sensation and grossed more than $107 million in domestic theaters a year ago, becoming one of the most profitable releases in show business history. Instead, the sequel/prequel was haunted by memories of Hollywood's last effort to clone a similar scary story: Artisan Entertainment's "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," which took in less than 20% of the preceding film's revenues and was so decisively despised by critics and audiences that it tainted 1999's original "Blair Witch Project" by association.

The White House this month issued a classified order to resolve mounting frictions between the nation's intelligence director and the CIA over issues including how the agency conducts covert operations, U.S. officials said. The intervention reflects simmering tension between the two most powerful players in the U.S. intelligence community: Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta. The memo maintains the CIA's status as the nation's lead spy service on covert missions, rejecting an attempt by Blair to assert more control.

The British government was aware of "drumbeats in Washington" in early 2001 calling for the toppling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but steered clear of such an aggressive policy before the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said Tuesday as a panel launched a major inquiry on how and why the British government went to war in Iraq. William Patey, head of the Foreign Office's Middle East department at the time, said during the hearing that in February 2001, "We were aware of these drumbeats in Washington and internally we discussed it. Our policy was to stay away from that.

A Journey My Political Life Tony Blair Alfred A. Knopf: 702 pp., $35

Former British prime minister Tony Blair's memoir "A Journey: My Political Life" is a political biography of unusual interest. As a book, it's unusual because he wrote it himself, which makes this volume unique among the English-speaking world's recent political autobiographies. It also gives "A Journey" a disarming frankness that a professional collaborator almost certainly would have manicured away, along with anecdotes that are unintentionally self-revealing. There are also the extraordinary circumstances surrounding its publication.