I have to admit openly that I do not like Tony Blair. It isn't because of his position on a possible war...exactly. He seems likeable enough and is young and good-looking. He's been called the "people's prime minister," or something to that effect because of his political style. He appears to want to engage the public directly about a host of issues, and even involve himself in affairs of state that don't necessarily require his presence.

But I don't like the way he's cozied up to the Bush Administration and thrown his political future alongside a man who has made only a paltry number of trips outside his country. Lately it seems that Mr. Blair is all over the place, darting from one country to the next, addressing Parliament all the time to make his case for war. Mr. Blair seems very much on the go, in stark contrast to Mr. Bush, who makes scripted appearances they have the nerve to call "news conferences."

I may not like Mr. Blair, but right now, I feel sorry for him. I have no doubt that he is truly, deeply convinced that he's taking the correct stand, even if I don't agree with it. I don't think he's a coward. Yet it seems that in America's so-called "coalition of the willing," Mr. Blair is the one doing all the work. He's been arguing the case for invasion on moral grounds and hasn't stopped pressing the flesh, so to speak, to nail this issue down with the opposition. And from what I'm reading in the British press, they are legion. An overwhelming majority of Britons don't want a war, especially if it's carried out under the aegis of the American flag and not the UN. Officials are threatening to quit and he recently suffered what's been described as a rebellion in his own party.

But there he goes, appearing on MTV and a town-hall style meeting where he gets clobbered and humiliated by a group of angry women who slow-clap the end of the show. The strain on his face is palpable. The man looks tired. I don't see the Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar looking as haggard as Mr. Blair. Or the Bulgarian...wait a minute, exactly who is running Bulgaria? They've sided with the American position of attacking now, but I have yet to hear of any of their officials making the rounds to secure a vote on a second UN resolution authorizing force against Iraq.

No, it's just poor Mr. Blair shuttling around, putting his political neck on the line for an ally bent on war. Can you imagine the spectacle of George Bush on MTV attempting to sell the public on war? Or appearing at a town-hall where there was no script, no friendly members of the audience giving him warm approval? He would prove utterly incapable of off-the-cuff remarks, or even a cogent reason of why we must invade -- and by cogent, I mean answers more than "He has weapons of mass destruction. He is a threat. He gassed his own people. He has weapons of mass destruction."

Probably part of the reason Mr. Blair runs around so much is that he's the leader of country very uncomfortable being so closely allied with a hyperpower that is more interested in imposing its will than playing the diplomatic game. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld does Mr. Blair no favor when he open states that America could go it alone if the British opted to not to join for whatever reason. No matter how it's spun, it's a damaging thing to say and it undermined Mr. Blair's hard work to sell the war. With friends like these, who needs Saddam Hussein?

Perhaps Mr. Blair has to work so hard and throw his health into harm's way is because he doesn't have such a pliant media to help sell the war for him. The British media is not as high-minded as Americans might think (English tabloids seem infinitely worse than those stateside). Yet the British media does not have the ready-for-primetime-war feeling that American cable news outlets possess. England also doesn't have an office of Homeland Security, whose principal job seems to be scaring the populace to death with warnings of impending attacks. So Mr. Bush doesn't have to work that much, and he has most of the American public on his side as they've readily believed a direct link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. What Mr. Blair would give for that kind of compliance!

Mr. Prime Minister, get some sleep. You've done all you can to sell the war, keep the Americans happy and strive for a semblance of balance with Europe. It's time to go to bed.