Hunt Supporters Dare to "Blair All"

When politicians cannot tackle complex problems like failing economies, they often turn to imaginary problems and invented controversies. In the U.S. we have flag burning, in the U.K. they have fox hunting.

Unable to actually do something meaningful on either the home or international front, Tony Blair has suddenly decided to drop everything in order to push through a ban on the the use of hunting with dogs.

In an effort to push back, at least a little bit, pro-hunt campaigners in the U.K. staged a demonstration outside Cherie Blair's 50th birthday party at the Blair country house at Chequers.

In is unclear whether these and other protests will matter: Blair has said he is going to use procedural rules to ram through a ban on fox hunting, never mind that his proposed legislation has only minority support among U.K. voters. Blair seems to think democracy is a good idea for Iraq, but not necessarily the ticket at home.

Blair's big concession is that his proposed hunt ban will take effect two years from now "in order to ease the transition in the countryside."

It is a poison pill, and people in the U.K. are crazy if they swallow it.

Thank goodness things are a bit different in the U.S. Both of our current Presidential candidates hunt and fish, as do many members of the Supreme Court (including the female Justices). The Congressional Sportsman's Caucus is one of the most powerful bipartisan groups on Capitol Hill, and they ensure an ever-expanding amount of land protected by conservation easements for sport hunting and angling.