David Frum wishes you a happy... well, a good... well, it's a nice day anyway, and he wishes you well in it, as do I. Mind you it has to be said that at this time of year it's traditional to set bad news alongside good (which is not even to mention Terri Schiavo- excellent article linked via Real Clear Politics. Actually a thought occurs to me- while I keep updating this post- that Terri Schiavo could die on Easter Day, which would be poignant to say the least.)

New Sisyphus has a terrific analysis of the trumpeted UN reforms where they set their legal minds racing to interpret what Koffis definitions and notions of enhanced missions really imply.

A New Offensive(ness)

I meant to get round to reading this Paul Wood article since I was sure that the Beeb's notion of an Iraq 'balance sheet' would interest me. Ok, I'm a bit late, but it didn't disappoint.

It's funny, maybe BBC journalists get so familiar with the medium of words that they think of them like numbers, so that if, in establishing a metaphorical balance sheet, it is loaded with extensive negative expressions, that can be balanced by one or two big plusses. Woods' article is like that. All negative bar the important inescapable plusses (which say nothing really about his desire to recognise all the data, since they couldn't be left out under any circumstances)- the end of Saddam (mentioned obliquely) and the Iraqi elections. The trouble comes if you are confused as to the overriding value of these latter two points, which is actually where the battle for public opinion takes place. Clearly the beeb are hoping to overwhlem these two strong positions of the pro-war crowd.

The mood music of Woods' article is entirely negative, the anecdotes (extraordinary and extreme) basically negative, the bottom lines assumed (positive).

It's just so Not-In-My-Name it's difficult to conceive it could be more so.

But, well, there's more from the Beeb in a similar, perhaps deeper, vein. This article is crazily lop-sided. What I object to most of all though is not the unrestrained negativity- or rather I do object to that but surmise that it is due to a lack of context.

It's a story from Matthew Price about the kidnap of teenage girls. The girls interviewed go to the same school, which gives a mixed Islamic/Catholic education in a compound surrounded by barbed wire and garrisoned by guards. Sounds dreadful, yes?
But what I want to know is quite simple. How rich are these girls' fathers? How unusual is a mixed religion school in Baghdad? What kind of muslims go there, Sunni, Shia or both (I am not satisfied with Price's idea of a 'crosssection' of conservative and less conservative when we all know the divide that counts in much of the troubles of Iraq is Sunni-Shia)? What kind of backgrounds do these girls have? Were they from families who had status within the old regime, or do their families have status within the new one?

The final point of call is another BBC article but not a specifically BBC issue: the legal justification for the war in Iraq, which is just one of the windows of opportunity that Stoppers have tried to open to justify their position against the removal from power of Saddam Hussein.

This is clearly an election-inspired put up job from the most radically leftist media broadcaster in the UK: Channel Four News (they would like to hear that, actually):

'The revelations came in a censored part of ex-Foreign Office lawyer Elizabeth Wilmshurst's letter, obtained by Channel 4 News.'

The silliest thing about this non-story (non- because it exactly accords with my memory of how things unfolded in the public eye. Goldsmith advocated a second UN resolution to make absolutely sure of legality, which seemed as equivocal then as it does now in the light of Ms Wilmshurst's revelations) though is Jack Straw's defence of his government against its closest challengers for the prize of governance of the country:

'He accused the Tories of trying to use the issue as a "smokescreen to avoid their own responsibility for the fact they voted for this military action".

Straw is an old woman of long standing on just about everything, but this is absurd and demonstrates why you can think that the Government did absolutely the right thing in supporting Bush militarily against Saddam, yet still deserves to lose the general election.

The main accusation against the Beeb though is in a way minor (with major implications): that they take all this at face-value and don't question the triviality of the news value because for them the anti-Iraq war view will be news until it becomes an active consensus.

Bush, Sharon, Podhoretz, his daughter, and me. I've rarely, if ever, found such as strong echo of my feelings and views about an issue as in this long essay about Sharon, and Bush, and the Gaza withdrawal plan.

Difficult to summarise, and not easy to select quotes from, it is a fascinating meander through one of this century's great foundational dilemmas. Podhoretz thinks that in the end it might come down to a question of faith, but then again, his discourse is one where reasoning, wrestling one might even say, abounds.

It's the travail of a principled thinker and writer.

Podhoretz defends his faith in Bush, whose motives and Sharon's form a kind of nexus out of which Podhoretz believes that security, and eventually peace, ought to come. Explaining his faith in Bush he refers to the kind of historical disappointment only a man of maturer years can have felt:

'I had expected Moynihan [Patrick Moynihan, hero of the Democrat right in the 70's, apparently] to persist in the battle we had all been waging against the steadily leftward drift of the Democratic party. But when he broke our hearts by joining in that drift himself, I resolved that from then on I would abide by the words of the Psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes.”
...

[of his misplaced trust] Is it now flying out again in relation to George W. Bush? I cannot in all honesty dismiss the possibility. And yet neither can I dismiss the possibility that this is one prince who, on the basis of repeated demonstration, deserves to be trusted.'

Here I think is where Podhoretz can rest easy, and on that rest can found his confidence, 'cause Bush ain't no Prince. Terrific article; took a long time to read.

The Mugabe Effect. Since the BBC have been unable to drag their eyes off Mugabe's lively personality and his anti-colonial rhetoric (or random dribblings, if you ask me), and since Bob went all neo-con by praising George Bush jnr, Mr Geldof's not had the best of presses. The Beeb have become critical of him, and the sign of this is that when few hundred Government inspired drones take to the streets of a random African capital because Bob questioned the divine rights of their latest dear leader, the BBC are all agog, and wish you to be too.

I was going to post the following post yesterday, but a combination of Blogger woes and time constraints meant I left it, and now Steyn has produced the perfect article to complement it. PS: see this also, a fine summary argument I found at Real Clear Politics.

Healthy Words from a woman I fancy

I don't normally bother to fancy women in the public eye- it's too obvious and well, rather futile. I'll make an exception for Joanna Jepson, though, because not only is she attractive, she's full of good works when it comes to following through against one of the scourges of our age, what she terms 'abortions for eugenic reasons'

She authored a fine article for the Telegraph yesterday (Sun), as at last a little controversy is being injected into the abortion debate by Michael Howard, Conservative leader.

I recently had to endure some Talking Head (on Sky) saying that it wasn't easy to get an abortion, in the same interview where it was stated that there had been 180,000 abortions in the UK last year. Not easy?

This all comes at a time when the Terry Schiavo case is so critically poised in the US (see also Michelle Malkin's updates).

Although the Schiavo case is clearly different in that the life in question is that of an adult reduced to an inability to exercise her own will rather than a child too young to have attained it, the variety of such cases demonstrates the way 'the system' is biased towards death rather than towards life, such that an exceptional intervention is required to preserve life.

I can also declare a personal interest in the age of abortion matter in that my niece was born prematurely at 24 weeks, and I only wish I had a photo available to show you how healthy and happy she is now, one and a half years after her early appearance (at which time she was thoroughly lively and quite responsive).

It's good that Joanna is around to highlight this issue (and its shameful there aren't more doing the same), and to raise questons like this:

'Mr England said, in response to my complaint about the abortion, that he was satisfied the two doctors who authorised the termination of the 28-week-old foetus in Herefordshire in 2001 had acted "in good faith".

What does that mean, exactly? It strikes me as the kind of phrase wheeled out by politicians when they've done something especially disgraceful, as if to say: yes, what I did was wrong but I was thinking the right thoughts while I did it. In the same way, Mr England appeared to be saying that as long as the two doctors did not believe they were breaking the law, their actions were justified.'

More about Jo Jepson and her family here.

Simpson's middle road

The BBC's John Simpson has quite a tendentious article at BBConline. The one point that I'd highlight is the centrepiece fact of his argument:

'the basic problem remains: the Sunni population is as angry, resentful and resistance-minded as ever.

As the supporters of the invasion are finding two years on, you cannot step in, change the structure of a nation fundamentally and make everyone happy. There is a ferocious price to be paid, and on average two coalition soldiers and 20 Iraqi civilians pay it daily. '

I'm not sure about the civilian figure, though I doubt it, but I do think that Simpson ought to have known the latest stats whereof his argument gains its stature. It's not enough to say well, on average, if you intend that average to be a current one, and then to get your figures about thirty percent wrong.

The Quieter Approach

The BBC has gone rather quiet over the quagmire that was Iraq. Paul Reynolds still keeps throwing up the spectre of Vietnam ('there is an interesting precedent...After the Vietnam War'- previously linked on this site), not because it was similar (that hope has evaporated), but because he's still hopeful of manipulating opinion in the same way. It can be like Vietnam for him and his ideology. Anytime there's a 'bang', you can guarantee the BBC will report it the loudest, but still, things are quiet.

Recently they took a break from making their lengthy compendiums of Iraq violence (often stretching over several days) to make separate reports- both of which linked to the anti-war protesters who parade with the BBC's heart with them alongside the mock coffins.

In their report about the marchers, or about the latest 'bangs', they don't find time to allude to trends like this (reg required), reported by Belgravia Despatch, though they do mention that 100,000 casualty figure produced by the Lancet and hotly disputed ever since.

However, in addition to highlighting Turkish anti-Americanism, they found time to bring to everyone's attention that Leftist professor Cole who tried to discredit IraqtheModel. The world according to Cole is a world of US neoImperialist oppression, and the Iraqi democracy's a sham. It's a subtler argument than usual, in that instead of condemning US attempts to bring democracy to the undemocratic, it criticises the imperfection of that attempt as all part of the evil conspiracy.

Meantime the insidious attempt to reconfigure Saddam as our fault in the first place was given a boost by the Dutch (and occupied BBC frontpage space for quite a while). This is pure scapegoatism (not that the Dutchman deserves any sympathy), but when you consider that brand new French missiles were fired at US forces in Iraq in the last two years, you have to say that the Euros are highlighting old chesnuts to deflect attention from newer ones. The same muddying tactics are working on the UNscam situation. To my mind the failures of the international community were greater in the 90's than in the 80's (all things considered) but it's much more convenient to root around in almost defunct criminality than to dig up less decayed corpses.

The BBC demonstrates again and again its commitment to the transnationalism of the UN and the EU, and all agencies in between.

The March of Freedom.

I'll just start by mentioning my surprise today when, on Sky television I saw the often anonymous and unspectacular (except for the shoes) Teresa May of the British Conservative party being given a chance to make a case against Cannabis as a 'C class' (ie. minor, unmeriting legal action for users) drug. She did a bad job, as did the interviewer in examining her, but the striking thing was that she was there questioning whether the Blair Government hadn't made a big, big mistake in previously declassifying the drug. The Blair government? Mistakes? Shsssssshh!

My point is that for the first time in a long time it felt that we might have the decency to engage in democracy in the UK.

Returning to the May interview, it was noticeable that she was allowed to criticise the Home Secretary (and former Home Secretary) without being made to 'win' the argument over Cannabis-as-a-danger-to-society first, or being browbeaten with a barrage of 'I used it and I'm fine even though I used to be middle class and now I live on benefits in a broken down semi' type personal testimonies.

To me this felt like freedom, as it appears that finally journalists might be considering that good compos mentis people might not automatically approve of Blair, so that it would not be necessary to subject them to the third degree 'normalcy' test before they criticise him or his representatives. In fact, I think even the Blair-Brown heavyweigtitis virus may be losing its potency (another Sky journalist thought that Brown was laughing at Blair as he floundered while trying to fend off a hostile question at a recent photo-op they took together.)

Strangely enough, what seems to underlie this change of heart is the wake-up that we've experienced over Sinn Fein IRA. I think that Blair's dynamic 'Good Friday agreement dash' in the early part of his reign, and his post-modern declarations that Britain was a young country, were designed, and had the effect of, putting people's critical faculties to rest. His other half (certainly their tiff seems like a lover's one) Brown played out similar tactics in the economic sphere with his rhetoric of 'prudence'.


In reexamining Adams and co. we reexamine Blair and co (shame on Blair that there should be this connection; long may the reexamination continue, and let's kick Adams all the way into the Atlantic Ocean and Blair from his office). There's a lot to reexamine. I look at journalists today and I get a sense they no longer like the Blair government very much. For neo-Conservative Thatcherites like me the Blair government has always been a sham and a shambles, though apparently a functioning one, but I did consider that Blair was right about Iraq, which goes to show that his belief that he can act as a statesman has reality at some level. The trouble is it's a level of absurd hubris and self-regard, as he and his minions thought that very little existed that couldn't be spun into something else.

It's surely a fact that very many socialists are fantasists, and there are also very many fantasists in today's Britain, so there was a very good match going there for a while. But the fantasy fragments and the centre cannot hold, and the terrible truth for the Blairites, and the BBC, and the neo-socialists (those fantasists who held their noses while Blair got entrenched through spin) is that only those with the facts of life straight stay standing.

Looking into the Ireland issue recently have been Mark Steyn and Simon Jenkins. I mentioned their articles earlier as differing about apportioning blame for the appeasement of Irish terrorism between the US backers and apologisers for Sinn Fein (sometimes at the highest levels) and the British ones. Curiously enough there can be no argument that Blair and Clinton between them could resolve the Jenkins/Steyn argument- since they united in this policy, as Gerard Baker points out in an article selected by Real Clear Politics where he illustrates what a fine writer he is, and with what good sense.

When to disagree.

Ok, here's the scenario: You're a person who becomes loyal to a commentator or opinion-former, and the person in question is very incisive and persuasive. When, or how, do you bring yourself to disagree with them?

I was tuning in, metaphorically, to Melanie Phillips' excellent take on the international appointments recommended by W. recently. This was after reading Steyn's definitive take on John Bolton's appointment as ambassador to the UN in the Spectator, an excellent magazine judging from what I read of it.

I was just leaning towards Melanie's viewpoint that Bush's actions actually showed that the 'neo-cons'- as the BBC enthusiastically calls them- were being cleared out of the main centres of political power in the US, though I was resisting a little because, reading Steyn, I had become very enthused about the magnitude of Bolton's appointment. Then I remembered Max's tip about the New Sisyphus's powerful assessment of the progress being made at the United Nations by the US perspective on world affairs. While there, I came across this post. Don't miss it- it's a nugget. The outstanding point regarding Melanie's thesis:

'We recently heard a high-ranking member of the State Department announce to a group of assembled junior FSOs that whoever the President picks as the next Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs will be a strong indicator of the direction the President intends to take not only this crucial component of our Department, but the Department itself.

What that means is that the President's appointment of Karen Hughes to that position has effectively ended the mini-debate about whether Condoleeza Rice's appointment could mean either that the President intended to engage the foreign affairs establishment or shake it up. The appointment of Hughes can only mean that the President intends to shape and bend the bureaucracy of the Department to suit his needs.'

Impossible without the Internet, the inside view of shifting sands within the US government ecosystem provided by the Sisyphus helped me to make up my mind.

P.S. Speaking of when to disagree, here's Eursoc disagreeing with Steyn and siding with Sir Simon, a bit. Maybe I would too. Here's Jenkins' effort- worth reading.

P.P.S. Thanks to Mike in the comments I realise I messed up the Karen Hughes link, which was, well, more or less the whole point. Duh. Apologies, but it's fixed now, and I noticed one more lovely quote to point out from the clever fellows at Sisyphus:

'If this keeps up, we'll be forced to implement the foreign policy of the United States.'

Heaven (and the BBC) forbid!

Clear-sight.

President Bush's nominations for key international roles are both excellent choices. Paul Reynolds makes an apt allusion to Nelson and his lieutenants, when the proteges of the master were sent out to greater responsibility away from their mentor. A strange one too, though, partly because a militaristic one. And since when was Bush regarded as the father of the neo-cons? Is this a promotion for Bush or a demotion for Wolf-o-Witz in Reynolds eyes? The only other comparison he can come up with comes from the Reynolds' list for Father Christmas- that Wolf-o-Witz will be another such 'repentant' warmonger as there was after Vietnam.

Of course the Euros respond as Euros do, with condescension or rudeness masquerading as humour, a human quality which in the case of most of Western Europe is notable by its absence.

The clear-sight of these so-called neocons is exceptionally necessary in the current period.

Clear-sight.

President Bush's nominations for key international roles are both excellent choices. Paul Reynolds makes an apt allusion to Nelson and his lieutenants, when the proteges of the master were sent out to greater responsibility away from their mentor. A strange one too, though, partly because a militaristic one. And since when was Bush regarded as the father of the neo-cons? Is this a promotion for Bush or a demotion for Wolf-o-Witz in Reynolds eyes? The only other comparison he can come up with comes from the Reynolds' list for Father Christmas- that Wolf-o-Witz will be another such 'repentant' warmonger as there were after Vietnam.

Of course the Euros respond as Euros do, with condescension or rudeness masquerading as humour, a human quality which in the case of most of Western Europe is notable by its absence.

The clear-sight of these so-called neocons is exceptionally necessary in the current period.

Continuing Boyles.

It was Dennis who was labelled a menace after he decribed Europeans as cockroaches. Well, he had a point, in the metaphorical sense of them being practically intolerable and hard to expunge from the mind. Once again this can be illustrated- when you look at examples such as the recurrent anti-war demonstrations, presently (at this general time) taking place in European capitals and elsewhere to mark the injustice perpetrated by the US and allies in removing Saddam from his golden toilet seat, for instance. Anti-war even when there's no war to be anti.

Amir Taheri has a great article where he labels these people 'Pests in freedom's way'.

Taheri thinks that we should worry about what the symptom of anti-war derr-brain demos means for the health of the West, and Europe in particular.
'Why are so many Westerners, living in mature democracies, ready to march against the toppling of a despot in Iraq but unwilling to take to the streets in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East?', he asks.

The answer seems to be that their idotarianism is tolerated, condoned even, in a Europe without a heart for the stakes and without a serious brain for analysis- yet needing excuses for itself. Our politicians, unable to argue coherently for anything in particular, are forced merely to lie or pander to the mob desire to be morally or socially significant. This applied to the Blair argument that took as to war in Iraq, and applies as well to the Straw argument to take us deeper into Europe. Both quite deliberately emptied of true content and filled with less true, or downright false, content (although I knew what Tony meant about Iraq ;-} )

EURef exemplifies this with their fearsome 'we are more powerful' series of posts, inspired by the FO's man of Straw.

They also link to an excellent blog intended to cut through the obfuscation of European thought. The Transatlantic Intelligencer inspired this current post. Its latest post exposes the 'pests' or 'cockroaches' (yes, these are the kind of Europeans Boyles had in mind) for what they are: dumb irritants scratching at the very surface of our culture, yet drawing everyone's energies and attention, not to mention the panderous activities of the politicians. The really amazing thing is just how ignorant, just how contentless, these people are. One keeps imagining that to shout so loud somewhere in their morassed consciouness there must be a clear idea, some kind of reality beyond their reflexive (insect-like, swarming and making noise) anti-Americanism. But no. 'Argument weak- shout loud', as a friend of mine liked to say.

These are the kind of people which media organisations like the BBC- which claims to be an intelligent broadcaster- unquestioningly admires, or of which it asks admiring questions, or to which it offers admirable representation.

Too Rude to the French?

No, you never can be. Once you start down that road you know they'll be taking l'avantage at every turn. It's France's fault that democracy in Europe is so stunted, and that Europe's idea of enterprise involves smoke-filled rooms and corruption.

That's why I welcome a new book by Dennis Boyles, who, having lived in France for several years, and with great experience of the world at large, is well placed to tell it like it is. Says Boyles in his blurbing effort:

'"What we mistakenly see as a craven, anti-Semitic, insecure, hypocritical, hysterically anti-American, selfish, overtaxed, culturally exhausted country, bereft of ideas, fearful of its own capitulation to Islam, headed for a demographic cul de sac, corrupted by lame ideologies, clinging to unsupportable entitlements, crippled by a spirit-stomping social elite and up to its neck in a cheesy soufflé of multilayered bureaucracy is actually worse than all that. It’s vile." '

In case that seems just a little OTT, consider this latest episode in France's proud history- their cosying up to China by attempting to open ways to sell arms to them and putting the frighteners on Taiwan. Never mind that they fail to offer any support for democracy's rise in the Middle East, they go looking for more shame to heap upon themselves, as the Taipei Times opines magnificently:

'when those who have influence can persuade the government to do their bidding, the result may quite possibly be terrible - France conniving at the destruction of a liberal democracy simply to enrich its "merchants of death" and their politician friends.'

(thanks to the moderately Franco-sceptical blog EUReferendum for the link.)

Got to mention Nicholas Vance. Talk about talking sense. He was linked at B-BBC just today but not for this. Nicholas has been pursuing the BBC in his own way at all sorts of levels for well over a year online, and getting better and better. The depth to which he has taken the argument is really a great example for people like me to follow.

Back to Ireland, and events are developing hearteningly. Powerline, most anglophile of US blogs (well, one of them does support Everton FC) reports George Bush's contempt for Irish terrorists (it is, sadly, necessary to make that distinction) and describes Gerry Adams as 'head of the IRA's political puppet group, Sinn Fein'

They also link to this timely Mark Steyn article (Steyn who has an ancestor for every occasion) about St. Paddy's day. It's about time for the full rhetorical broadside to be unleashed on the IRA/Sinn Fein, driving them into the political ocean.

Not forgetting of course that Teddy Kennedy has taken a tactical step away from the gangster group. It's all good.

Let's hope for more of the same, and some greater understanding than this demonstrates:

'"It's hard to understand how a European country in the year 2005 can have a private army associated with a political party," said Mitchell Reiss, the US envoy on Northern Ireland.'

Well, not really. Too many unquestioning friends for too long, not enough enemies, and an incurable nostalgia for a defunct fantasy called 'nationalism'.

One year early: you 'retire' or you're 'ousted'.

When Dan Rather left CBS one year before he had been due to because his vendetta against the Bush admin. had been exposed by bloggers, he 'stepped down', or 'retired' according to the BBC. They even found space to report that his last show increased CBS' ratings to their highest point since 2000.

However, when Michael Eisner of the Disney Corporation left his job a year before he was scheduled to, he was, apparently, according to the BBC, 'ousted'. Naturally this is what should happen to all fiendishly exploitative capitalists, in an ideal world. And since we don't have an ideal world I guess I'll just have to accept the BBC's pretence that there is one.

Of course, there's always a fly in the ointment: 'Mr Eisner is to remain on Disney's board till 2006. Under his contract, he is eligible for up to $18m in severance pay over three years, the Wall Street Journal reported.' the BBC report briefly, at the end.

Update: Admittedly the resignation statements of people in business, as in politics for that matter, are banal and usually covering themselves against the worst interpretations of their departure. However, if the BBC can accept the politicians' claim that he needs to spend more time with his family, why does the BBC always make big business seem like it emulates the mafia? Why not reserve that for the next IRA/Sinn Fein resignation? Forbes offers a different spin, Eisner 'yielding' to pressure, or 'stepping down'. Also, it's important to mention here that the BBC stealth editor has been fast at work since the original post. Sounds more reasonable now, though the ousted Eisner is still ousted.

Great response by IraqtheModel to the Hezbullah march: 'bringing too many people by buses doesn't mean that you're right'. The bottom line is that only anti-democratic forces could have created a demo that big, and the boys from The Model know of what they talk. Lacking commonsense like that, of course, is what makes the BBC's view of things so hopelessly skewed (ItM quotes a BBC report which appears to be suffering from Assad's shock and awe 'em tactic.)

In other affairs, I'm glad to see that Myers thinks Bush is about to make clear that Adams is N.I.'s Arafat. (thx ATW)

As a sidenote, for which I can't offer a meaningful link, my University of York Alumni magazine-(received recently) -gave their verdict on the US general election just as the Guardian might have (say no more), and then ran an article alongside a large picture of Diane Abbot, New Lab. supporter of the Iraq War, shaking hands two-fistedly with the Yasser in 2003 (the article was about Abbot herself, her background, career etc). Trying indirectly to make amends with the Muslims in her constituency, perhaps, by spreading around as widely as she can a picture of her with the Islamofascists' chief saint? More New Lab two-faced behaviour concerning the WoT. They really don't get it (all that well(at all)).

But Universities are among the worst offenders when it comes to building prejudice though appearing rational, as Melanie Phillips reports once again

American journalists can be pompous, says Simon Jenkins (snigger, snigger), as he says that bloggers have put him on his mettle like never before (snigger, snigger). (ps. Scott knocks his p.o.v. beautifully)

Debunking and Debating.

Got to start with this outstanding pigeon-holing of Hunter S. Thompson and the cult which seems to enthrall many middle-aged and not-so middle-aged liberal Americans. Hugh Hewitt blasts thus:

'Ah yes, the Nixon wars –when journalists bravely stood tall against the machine guns and machetes of the death squads roaming D.C.

I don’t have access to Lexis-Nexis on the plane, so I can’t search “Hunter Thompson w/i 1000 Pol Pot,” but I don’t recall any “fearless” reporting on the Cambodian holocaust, or the trials of Bukovsky, Sharansky Sarkaroff and Solzhenitsyn. Just stream of consciousness paranoia brought on by too many drugs, and later idolized by mid-life-crisis-enduring salary men with editors and small expense accounts/'

If there is a 'stupid America', it's the sort that idolised the likes of Thompson. The whole 'great American Novel' thing is about as dated as flares in my view, and a massive distraction from America's real concerns.

Speaking of which, I notice a lot of floundering about concerning whether the events in Lebanon are good or bad. Syria withdraws- but with Hezbullah's endorsement for its influence in Lebanon. Syria withdraws with assurances that its power is not resented and its influence will be undiminished (notice how the BBC (above link) give a leading role in this withdrawal process to the UN's representative, Roed Larssen- he arrives, Syria withdraws, coincidentally. Just another of those little nuances about who is moving events and who has authority to do so. The BBC's transnationalism at work. Also note the way that the BBC is prepared to report the stage-managed withdrawal- 'government supporters were bussed to the frontier for a carefully stage-managed occasion',- but not so much the obviously stage-managed rally; here, they limit themselves to saying the kind of thing anyone deviously organising a vast propaganda effort would be happy with: 'Hezbollah officials handed out Lebanese flags and directed the men and women to separate sections, but the crowds were so large they spilled out of Riad al-Solh Square into surrounding streets.' . This is in keeping with its general presentation of Arab regimes and allegedly popular terrorist-entwined organisations as manipulative to some extent, but largely benign). Children were bussed in to fill the square for the Hezbullah rally, according to this report, but the level of organisation, just viewed by itself, which swamped the anti-Syrian demonstrators was clearly daunting, and intended to be daunting, to those who hope for a pro-Western democratic resolution to the Lebanon's powerplay.

In related stuff, the Economist believes that the neo-cons are on the rise again (I don't watch events in this microscopic way, but they do), which is code for saying that events in the Middle East have vindicated the neo-cons convictions about Iraq, but not completely and nor will they do so.

Overall it looks like a soft-shoe shuffle between Iran-supported Hezbullah and a tactically-minded Syria. Its the old case that among despotic mentalities, faced with a democratic superpower like the US, there is no need to even mention the saying that my enemy's enemy is my friend. All the same, I'd say the pro-democracy, anti-Syria rallies are a staging post in the power struggle that will one day- one day soon, given the spontaneous vigour of the democratic impulse in the region- produce democratic revolution, and wipe Hezbullah off the map entirely.

(Good info for the above post came from Austin Bay and Real Clear Politics)