Blair's new job

Looks like Tony Blair is going to take the special envoy to the Middle East job.

JERUSALEM - Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be named on Wednesday as special envoy for the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East with a portfolio focused on Palestinian economic and political reform, a senior U.S. official said.

Members of the quartet, the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia, will give their public blessing and announce that Blair has agreed to take the job in simultaneous statements from their capitals and New York, the official told The Associated Press.

The official, who insisted on anonymity because the statements are still being drafted, spoke after being briefed on a meeting of quartet representatives held earlier Tuesday in Jerusalem.

Blair could be the best chance the Palestinian have had to get a fair deal since Bill Clinton's overtures in the '90s, maybe even before. Blair has a very high profile and it's doubtful that he would take the job unless he was promised a great deal of independence from all the parties involved. And he's not American, so he might not be um... swayed by all-powerful lobbying groups in the U.S.

But, who can really know, he has been too easily swayed in the past.