We'd been wanting to see ever since we saw The Queen, and it did not disappoint! We're grasping for analogies here! It's like the Godfather, only about politics! It's like Amadeus, if Salieri was the better composer! It's like Al Gore and Bill Clinton! It's like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama! It was SO GOOD. The best part is, you can watch it either as a nuanced study in backstabbing and forced sacrifice and fatal flaws and character analyses -- or you can watch it as a, "Dang, I wish they'd be this civilized and smart about politics in our country."

Morgan was hilariously funny in the talk beforehand, and he talks about Tony Blair the way that some local politics people talk about Gavin Newsom. ("He's so cravenly political, he can't even help it... I had so much hope he would be great, I was so optimistic... and then he's just gone and screwed everything up.") He indicated that he was indeed very seriously considering finishing up the Blair trilogy with his much-anticipated Blair-Bush movie about the war in Iraq (!!!!), but cautioned that he might need about 10 years to let the events settle into history before starting up the work. That's fine -- we'll wait as long as he needs! We can't wait to see how Morgan x-rays his way into the tortured chambers of the George W. Bush heart.

And as for Gordon Brown? Well, after over 15 years of waiting for his half of the Deal, Brown is widely expected to finally become prime minister this July, after Tony Blair steps down on Thursday of this week.

The Deal