The last time I had seen Prime Minister Tony Blair was on July 7, 2005, the day terrorists left a spray of glass and bodies across Tavistock Square in London. Blair, presiding over a Group of Eight summit at a golf resort in Scotland, was at first shaken and subdued. But as he gathered information on the attacks, he visibly gathered resolve. Before heading down to London, he showed me the speech he had written for that evening -- concise, elevated, with a perfect pitch of restrained emotion -- which I was powerless to improve.

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