Kieran Healy has an interesting post on the Blair Newsnight session here. He brings a useful perspective to the matter since myself, Atrios, and Kevin Drum are simply quite amazed by the idea of a leader being subjected to this kind of grilling. Actually, I'm not so much amazed by it as I am wistful. I managed to catch a session of the British Parliament the other day on C-Span. It was, I assume, one of the "Prime Minister Question Time" sessions that is mentioned in a comment to Kieran's post. It was really refreshing to watch a political leader be subjected to direct questioning by other members of his country live on national TV. Apparently this is a common practice in the British form of government. I can certainly see a benefit to it as it forces the leader to answer tough questions that an imperialist like Bush would just rather avoid. I have no doubt that Clinton, and most likely Gore, could have stood up to the kind of grilling I observed. Bush, as I said previously, would be crying for his mommy within five minutes. Tops.