“I am a citizen of Alabama. I did not think the story about the people worshiping around the Ten Commandments monument was a smear. It was an accurate description. I lived in Montgomery when Roy Moore was grandstanding, and let me tell you, the lowest common denominator of Christian representation were on hand to protest (I am a Christian, but find Roy Moore deplorable...also, take note that no local churches organized protest, the protests were done by out of state people) People were throwing themselves down in front of the rock like it was Baal. It was disgraceful.”

Well, I was certainly no fan of Moore’s rock remaining where it did on either legal or aesthetic grounds. If nothing else, it was a prime candidate for wrapping, Christo-style, but permanently.

This is interesting. With the German economy falling deeper and deeper into the mire, Schroeder seems to be swinging further to the left. There was a bout of business-bashing last week, and now there’s this piece of news via The Daily Telegraph:

“Germany is backing a 1970s-style Keynesian to take over the crucial job of chief economist at the European Central Bank, marking a dramatic shift in Berlin's economic thinking and horrifying the guardians of orthodoxy in Frankfurt. The post has been held for the last eight years by Dr Otmar Issing, a monetary hawk who has fought off political pressure for lower interest rates and sought to uphold the low-inflation traditions of the former Bundesbank. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder now hopes to replace him early next year with Professor Peter Bofinger, the leading advocate of a ''New Deal'' spending blitz to cut unemployment and lift the country out of protracted slump.The government slashed its growth forecast for 2005 yesterday from 1.6pc to 1pc after a week of grim confidence figures from German industry. Morgan Stanley has warned that the country may already be in recession.”

If you’re in a hole…

The Windsors may not be the sharpest knives in the block, but at least they keep their meddling in politics to a minimum. Not so Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, a woman deservedly notorious (yes, yes, ludicrously biased choice of adjective) for her establishment left politics.

Pieter at Peaktalk has a useful post on Beatrix, triggered by the recent appearance of a documentary about her. He seems to be something of an admirer, but with reservations. These comments are worth repeating:

“…Despite her political instincts she remained notably absent during the aftermath of both the Fortuyn and Van Gogh killings. This is somewhat odd as the documentary makers point out that in both cases there was a rare call from Dutch politicians, public and media to let the queen come forward and unify the nation with a speech or other symbolic gesture. In the interviews the queen briefly refers to them as “political murders”, enabling her to duck any elaborate treatment of both assassinations. It’s a clever escape route, the queen does not get involved in politics, but in view of her active engagement in matters of state as well as her very clear concerns over the direction of the society she represents it’s odd that she declined to act on such a traumatic experience. Her visit to an immigrant youth center shortly after Van Gogh’s killing was designed to appease Muslim sentiments rather than native Dutch anxieties and was deemed to be inadequate. She isn’t that quiet on Europe. Together with the current prime-minister she delivers a well-crafted pitch for the European Constitution in the documentary, the former touching on the efficiency of it, while the queen refers to the past-wars and violence that often tore the old continent apart. Her interviewer engages her on this topic and without missing a beat Beatrix points out the dangers of nationalism while underlining the importance of one’s own culture. Read into it what you want, but it was a gentle yet forceful push to encourage Dutch viewers to try and see the benefits of European integration arguing that it could still enable the preservation of their own national culture. To give you some material to reflect on this, picture an American president arguing that nationalism is a bad thing on the eve of an amalgamation with Canada and Mexico. So, in summary the current Dutch monarch has been able to exercise a tremendous amount of influence on areas where in theory she shouldn’t have and in doing that she has used her powers selectively to promote certain causes. It’s hard to accuse her of enforcing a political agenda, but throughout her tenure she has often come out where she and the political leadership felt Dutch public opinion was headed and that was hardly ever on the right of the political center.”

Time to restore the republic, I reckon.

This odd movement spreads like a wildfire. Anyone see last night's Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered?

Maybe we need a Corner TV show?

While George Bush was holding hands down in Texas, this is what his friend’s regime was doing back at home (via MEMRI).

“The Saudi daily Al-Jazirah reported that 40 men, women, and children with Pakistani citizenship were arrested on April 21, 2005 after performing Christian religious rites in an apartment in the Thaharat Al-Badi'a neighborhood in western Riyadh. The arrest was part of a sweeping police operation by the Riyadh District Police, at the order of Riyadh Governor Prince Salman bin Abd Al-'Aziz. The paper reported that the operation came after Saudi religious police – known as the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice followed and collected information on the activity of the 40, who listened to a proselytizing lecture by a Pakistani minister. The paper also noted that during the police operation, which lasted nearly 10 hours, a cross and a large number of proselytizing books and cassettes were found [in the apartment]. The detainees themselves stated that they had come to listen to lectures by the minister. One of the detainees was a Muslim Pakistani, who acknowledged that he had been influenced by the Christian ideology.The Saudi daily Al-Riyadh said that the detainees had set up a church in the apartment, equipped with crosses, pictures, and statues. Likewise, it was said that during their religious activity, one of them was found praying, as the others present repeated their words, and one of the women arrested was listing the people's confessions and distributing writs of absolution. The Al-Riyadh report included a photo of the detainees and of a large cross and the group which was arrested. A Saudi religious police source explained the reason for the arrest: "These people tried to spread the poison and their beliefs to others, by means of distributing pamphlets and [missionary] publications." He said that all the detainees "had been transferred to the relevant bodies for investigation."

Disgusting.

UPDATE

And there's this:

“A member of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's entourage was banned from the prince's trip to Dallas last week after showing up on a no-fly list, federal officials said Tuesday. As is routine with international flights, the Department of Homeland Security checked passenger manifests against terrorist watch lists and no-fly lists 24 hours before Saturday's trip. Homeland Security forwarded the information to the State Department, which denied the delegation member a visa to come to the United States, said an administration official, who did not want to be named.”

What's most revealing about the latter story is what it reveals about the degree of contempt in which the Saudis must hold the President.

Too much grovelling will do that, I suppose.

“French voters would approve the proposed European Union constitution in a referendum next month, the first opinion poll to give a swing in favour since mid-March showed Saturday. The TNS-Sofres-Unilog poll for the RTL radio station indicated 52 percent of decided voters would back the constitution in the May 29 referendum.”

The EU Rota blog has this to say:

“A new poll is out showing the Oui with a slight edge over the Non in the upcoming referendum battle to be held on 29 May. Good news, bad news? Try irrelevant news. It bears repeating, whether a Oui or a Non is the outcome on 29 May, free markets will suffer. The reason? A Oui will require Jacques Chirac to continue his fight against "ultra-liberalism" and his reinforcement of the "social model." A Non will be misread by Chirac as a signal to continue his fight against "ultra-liberalism" and his reinforcement of the "social model." Now that socialist promises have been made by Chirac, and will continue to be made, a Oui or Non is becoming irrelevant in terms of the French economy.”

That’s right, so far as it goes (anyone wanting a taste of the ‘yes’ campaign should check out how often those in favour of the draft ‘constitution’ have taken to using the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ as a term of abuse), but only so far as it goes. In the sense that a ‘no’ vote will also throw a spanner in the works of the larger EU project, which is, now, basically the creation of permanent social-democratic rule throughtout Europe, it can only be welcomed.

Votez ‘non’.

Matthew Parris on Tony Blair:

“A frantic mix of effrontery and panic characterises Mr Blair’s whole career, as they must with any confidence trickster. He’s been found out and he knows it but he won’t confess and you won’t pin him down.”

Ha ha ha.

Are the Scots ‘foreign’, Jonah? Most definitely. Just ask them – and, yes, it is true that they had a much more self-consciously ‘philosophical’ tradition than the English. So great, for example, was the intellectual influence of the Scottish enlightenment that Voltaire famously announced that it was to Scotland for “all our ideas of civilization.”

The French sage's opinions on Irn Bru and deep-fried Mars Bars remain unknown.

Tim, that’s interesting – and telling - what you say about Strassman. It’s worth noting that the report was inaccurate in one important respect. CBS, as one reader pointed out to me, had another Dan Rather moment: the proposed legislation did not include a ban on books merely because the authors were, horrors, homosexual.

Nevertheless, even if the context of the article was part of a continuing effort to portray all southern conservatives as Neanderthals, what was proposed was idiotic. This report has more:

“If the bill became law, public school textbooks could not present homosexuality as a genetic trait and public libraries couldn't offer books with gay or bisexual characters. When asked about Tennessee Williams' southern classic "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," Allen said the play probably couldn't be performed by university theater groups. Allen said no state funds should be used to pay for materials that foster homosexuality. He said that would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters. While that would ban books like "Heather has Two Mommies," it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as "The Color Purple," "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Brideshead Revisted."

Sigh.

As a recent HLS grad (and, more to the point, sensible human being), I have to agree with Bainbridge's suggestion that HLS Unbound may actually unseat the American Constitution Society as "the least necessary organization in the law school world." But looking at the first issue's offerings, I must note that HLS Unbound could actually fill a useful role as the world's most unintentionally hilarious legal publication.

Never mind Christine Desan's moon-unit investigation of the issue, "Out of the Past: Time and Movement in Making the Present." I highlight instead Kristina Brittenheim's unconscionably funny "In Pursuit of the Gold Star: Diary of a Law Student". It surely is a parody article submitted to HLS Unbound by the editors of the Onion (or, more likely, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy). Wrap your mind around this gem:

Ultimately, I propose that it is irrelevant whether the stories I tell here are “true,” as in fair or “factually” accurate. I see them through my own set of values and my social location as a white, heterosexual woman. I put the spin of my own brain and heart on them. I admit that right now.

I didn't mean to ignore your earlier question; I've been having technical difficulties all day, and now that I'm back online I'm trying to catch up on email and blogs.

I liked the president's remarks (which I read rather than watched) on Social Security. They may modestly help him.

You may recall that back in January, there was some debate in conservative circles about whether Congress or the president should lead. The last three months have, I think, conclusively shown that Congress is incapable of getting where the president wants it to get on its own. By beginning to outline a plan, the president may encourage some consolidation among Republicans. And by including progressivity in his benefit cuts, he may increase his chances of picking off a Democrat or two.

What's changed over the last few months? The Beltway has over the last few months pronounced reform dead, dead, dead, but the Beltway was basically saying the same thing (albeit with less conviction) in late December. The White House line is that the president has succeeded in persuading the public that Social Security needs to be reformed, and now can move to specifics. So what's changed are the political class's view of Bush's likely success (marginally down), the public's view of the urgency of the problem (up), and Bush's popularity and pull (down). I think Democrats are overconfident that they've already beaten Bush on Social Security--but it will take more than last night to turn things around.

That raises an interesting point for discussion around here. I've met Sullivan and Derb and was enriched by the experience on both counts.

But there are some conservatives I've yet to meet. Among those I would most like to remedy that situation are:

Mark Steyn

Paul Johnson (though as a TV producer I did technically meet him, but never chatted)

John Lukacs

Harvey Mansfield

Margaret Thatcher

Mark Helprin

And then there's a whole slew of conservative folks that I've met but have never really had a good conversation with. But that's a list for another day. Fortunately, I will meet Johnson on the British Isles Cruise.

So long Oscar, so long Walt...

And the justification for this nonsense?

Yup, you guessed it.

"Protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."

From a reader:

Jonah,

I have one problem with your idea that Sullivan and Derb are on the same page right now out of sheer Britishness.

British Conservatism (particularly the big-C kind: adherents to the political party) has been, at least since the 1960s, much more at home with many aspects of statism than American conservatism...not to mention the proud self-reliant/leave-me-alone meme these two are working on right now.

Example: I spent a year studying in Britain at the end of the Thatcher era, and would hang out with the campus Young Conservatives from time to time. Getting a good discussion going on privatization of the BBC, or on dismantling/privatizing/radically reforming the National Health Service, was always hard because the very thought of it scandalized them so profoundly.

This is a very long way from what you would expect from, say, a group of YAF-ers.

More seriously, it dawned on me that a main reason Sullivan's explanation of conservatism doesn't quite click is that it is so bloody British (which would also explain why he and Derb are more sympatico in outlook than he realizes). The British constitution, for example, is a very different beast than the American. The philosophical requirements for supporting an unwritten constitution are significantly different than those needed for supporting a written one, particularly the American one. Sullivan's Oakeshottian approach -- which never really caught on America -- is also, obviously, very, very British.

I'm not nearly up to speed enough on the subtler distinctions between British conservatism and American conservatism to go on much longer without thinking and reading more. But I think there's more than a grain of truth here.

The Derb-Sullivan rapprochement continues. Delighted to see it (though technically rapprochement implies that there were cordial relations to begin with, which I don't think is the case).

All I'd suggest to Andrew is that he consider that when his new categories cause him to find new common ground with his nemesis, perhaps it's the new categories that are flawed.

"I remember the Syria brouhaha," Mr. Hutchings said in responding to questions by e-mail. "I was not directly involved in vetting drafts, but I instructed all those working for me NOT to clear on anything they could not verify."

Mr. Hutchings added: "I remember saying specifically that I wanted us to play hardball on this one. I said that if anyone on the policy side chose to give a speech without our clearance, that was O.K. by me - policy makers have a different set of considerations. But if they asked for our clearance, they would get it only if we could verify the intelligence judgments it conveyed. I had no ax to grind with anyone, but we had a professional responsibility to call it as we saw it."

In testimony before the Senate committee on April 11, Mr. Bolton acknowledged that there had been "a lot of disagreements" about his proposed testimony on Syria and that objections from the Central Intelligence Agency and others were among the factors that contributed to his decision to postpone scheduled testimony in July 2003.

The C.I.A. specifically rejected an assertion in a classified section of Mr. Bolton's prepared testimony saying Syria had a biological and chemical weapons program that threatened regional security in the Middle East, intelligence officials have said.

Ultimately Mr. Bolton delivered public testimony on Syria, in September 2003, that was fully cleared by the intelligence agencies.

BBC reports that there's been an outbreak of "Zombism" in Cambodia:

There has been a small outbreak of “zombism” in a small town near the border of Laos in North-Eastern Cambodia.

The culprit was discovered to be mosquitoes native to that region carrying a new strain of Malaria which thus far has a 100 percent mortality rate and kills victims in fewer than 2 days.

After death, this parasite is able to restart the heart of its victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believed to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”

Cambodian officials say that the outbreak has been contained and the public has no need to worry.

General Ary Serey had this to say, "We have obtained samples of this new parasite and plan to learn how it starts the heart and other major organs of the deceased. We intend to use this to increase the quality of life for all."

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice opposed the plan saying that the Cambodian government holds a great biological weapon and should destroy it immediately. Cambodian officials have yet to comment.

A United Nations team will be dispatched to Cambodia to confirm the safety of biological research in Cambodia.

Me: Is this a parody? Does BBC run parodies after April Fools? Is Zombism real? Isn't this the sort of thing found in the Book of Revelations?

Update: Yes, it must be a parody -- as I suspected. The URL is not a BBC URL. But it looks very convincing when one is reading while on the phone.

Georgia Republicans repeal Jim Crow laws.

Funny how the Dems never thought of that.

That's right folks. You could be like Henry in the snows of Canossa pleading for entry, check in hand, and the suits will merely pour hot lead from the rooftop on you.

[Note: this analogy cannot withstand close inspection]

I slapped together a G-File on Sullivan's Opus trying to focus on one of the themes Ponnuru didn't already address.

Those of you who want to yell at me about it can swing by the Dubliner tonight. I will be the guy using the bartender's garnish tray as a salad bar. "Ooooooo...cocktail onions and lemon wedges...!"

Or Blogline, or Meet the Blogs or whatever that thing's is called. Let me use Judy Woodruff's departure from Inside Politics as an excuse to call it -- i.e. the Blog Street Journal, not IP -- the dumbest feature in television news today. Have you seen it? Some newsettes sit around and read from their screens whenever Judy asks "What's going on with the blogs...right now."

"Well, Judy. A poster on the Daily Kos seems to think Howard Dean is doing a great job. But -- and this is interesting! -- the conservative blog site Little Green Footballs seems to disagree. There's no telling what to make of that Judy. But we'll stay on top of this story as it develops. Back to you Judy."

I'm sure the intrepid screen readers who handle this heavy-lifting are perfectly fine and decent people who are merely going with the best gig presented to them. But I find the whole thing so lame as to be mortifying. It's amazing to me that the network which claims to be taking the high road -- on arguably its most serious show -- goes in for this kind of gimmick. On the other hand, that the entire MSNBC network is this gimmick doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

A month or two ago, I criticized them for seeming to drift to the left. Still good, but not as great as they once were, was my appraisal.

I'm coming around the view that they were just having a bad stretch. Maybe lefty treacle sprout like algae plumes every now and then and ALD -- which kind of serves as water filtration plant for intellectual currents -- simply reflected that for a little while. Or perhaps the unbridled power of the Corner's admonishments forced them to change their ways! Who knows? But it's been pretty good lately.

Boys and girls are different from the get-go. From Scientific American:

On a gray day in mid-January, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested that innate differences in the build of the male and female brain might be one factor underlying the relative scarcity of women in science. His remarks reignited a debate that has been smoldering for a century, ever since some scientists sizing up the brains of both sexes began using their main finding--that female brains tend to be smaller--to bolster the view that women are intellectually inferior to men.

To date, no one has uncovered any evidence that anatomical disparities might render women incapable of achieving academic distinction in math, physics or engineering. And the brains of men and women have been shown to be quite clearly similar in many ways. Nevertheless, over the past decade investigators have documented an astonishing array of structural, chemical and functional variations in the brains of males and females.

These inequities are not just interesting idiosyncrasies that might explain why more men than women enjoy the Three Stooges. They raise the possibility that we might need to develop sex-specific treatments for a host of conditions, including depression, addiction, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, the differences imply that researchers exploring the structure and function of the brain must take into account the sex of their subjects when analyzing their data--and include both women and men in future studies or risk obtaining misleading results.

Watching a press conference in which both the press and viewers struggled to stifle yawns as the President tried to compete against baseball, sitcoms, polls and pop star contests, all I can think of is how far we've come in just 42 months, from a point when every sentient being on the planet sat on the edge of their seats relishing every expression of this President's response to the worst attack on American soil in history. And what little credit we give him for leading us through that journey, back from the precipice to the relative ho-hum of a present day preoccupied with old-age welfare projections 30 years out.

NRO needs a jet.

From the London Times today:

"Europe, for the Dutch, has lost its allure. Few politicians now call for an ever-closer union. Even fewer see in Brussels a model of efficiency, probity or accountability. The Dutch are to vote on the European constitution three days after the French referendum. Disillusioned with EU bureaucracy, resentful that they pay a disproportionately high share of the EU’s rising costs and fearful of losing their national identity, the Dutch may vote decisively against...Above all, the country is reacting to years of stifling liberal consensus. There is a backlash against the assumptions that The Hague should pay generously for other Europeans, take a lead in development aid or make concessions to a club dominated by larger members determined to have their own way. The Dutch want to concentrate on priorities at home. What they dislike is not the idea of a constitution, but the accretion of more power to an unaccountable Brussels. The Netherlands has the chance to speak for Europe. The Dutch should vote “nee” in the referendum."

Zo is dat.

from someone who is a political scientist:

"Your questioner mixes two questions-- parliamentarism vs. presidentialism and federalism vs. unitary states.

"Federalism has been adopted in many successful ongoing constitutional democracies, including Canada, Australia, Germany, India, and Spain.

"What hasn't been adopted successfully is presidentialism. This is [a result of] both path dependence and selection effects.

"1a. Path dependence: Britain is parliamentary, and lots of the constitutional democracies in the world are former British colonies. Strong royal governors who existed in the 13 colonies in 1776 (standing in for a still-strong Crown at home), and strong republican governors filled their shoes, with a strong independent president following later. But by the time Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc., framed their governments, their local administration and the Westminster system in London were parliamentary.

"1b. Path dependence: The [West] German Basic Law has been more influential and more widely-copied in the postwar world than has the US Constitution. And the fact that the U.S. planted parliamentary systems in Germany and Japan probably helped to kill off the thought that even the U.S. thought a separately elected strong president was necessary for constitutional democracies.

"2. Selection effects. Lots of countries have *tried* independently elected strong presidents. And they haven't tended to remain constitutional democracies under that system. The U.S. political culture and underlying political conditions are very robustly republican-democratic-liberal; we could get a lot of institutional things wrong and still end up with a constitutional democracy. But where those things are more fragile, presidents seem to tend to become strongmen and dictators. Presidentialism has been a terrible failure in Latin America when it's been tried-- and it often was, in the 19th century, when the new Latin American republics took on the U.S. Constituion as a model.

"I'm sentimentally attached to presidentialism, and I theoretically like the stronger separation of powers you get with an independently elected executive. But the evidence suggests that the U.S. is unusual in being able to tolerate presidentialism and remain a democracy, and that parliamentarism is much the better bet for new constitutional democracies.

"(But parliamentarism is fully compatible with federalism--Canada, Australia, India, Spain.)"

BTW, I found the joint Pacific Research Institute - AEI publication extremely useful in getting prepared for my talk at U Minn this week. I wrote a column about environmental stuff today (i.e. out tomorrow) but I didn't get a chance to mention it there, so I'm doing it here. Steve Hayward and his colleagues do great work.

Moreover, they are advertising on our site. Look to the top of the page. You could do them, us, and yourself a big favor -- assuming you're interested in such things -- by clicking on the link.

An email opens up a new topic: "The United States has been the world’s greatest inspiration to freedom-lovers and young democracy movements for over 200 years. So why is it that worldwide – including now in Iraq – new democracies overwhelmingly choose the parliamentary form of government, rather than our federalist model? Is it because other nations (particularly smaller ones) don’t have the same rigid patchwork of semi-independent states we have? Or does it have to do with placating ethnic/sectarian concerns by giving them a chance to be part of a governing coalition? Still, the latter concern doesn’t seem like it would be a factor in, say, Israel.

"I have wondered this before, but I thought of it again with today’s news that Iraq has finally formed its new government. If they had followed the American model, they would have had their government in place by mid-February. The parliamentary form of government is certainly more responsive to the electorate, but its inherent instability would seem to make it a poor choice in a place like Iraq where a stronger executive branch could deal more effectively with law and order and keep things on a more consistent and even keel.

"But I’m no poli-sci expert, so please enlighten me (and maybe the Corner readers, as well)."

Wish I could. It's a good question, but I've never seen a satisfactory explanation.

Another email: "In this context, it might be worth quoting John Adams' 'Thoughts on Government.' Keep in mind that Gordon Wood calls 'Thoughts on Government' 'the most influential work guiding the framers of the new republics.' Adams explicitly connected happiness with virtue:

"'We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.

"'All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue. Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates, Mahomet, not to mention authorities really sacred, have agreed in this. If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?'

"An etext can be found here: http://www.founding.com/library/lbody.cfm?id=139&parent=54

"The bit I quote is at the beginning.

"It has been a couple of years since I read it, but wouldn't we find a
similar opinion in Smith's 'Theory of Moral Sentiments'?"

From a reader:

Subject: You are an idiot!!!

you have to be kidding me!!! This is one of the most juvenile articles ever written!!! Article after article after has been written recounting Bolton's crude Neanderthal treatment of underlings, his abuse of power and his outright disregard for the law and you say:

In other words, all of the "controversy" of the last couple weeks is bogus. It's a kabuki dance. Whether the allegations against Bolton are true or not is almost entirely beside the point, because if a completely unrelated set of facts were not in play, no one would care. In short, this is borking pure and simple.

What's bogus? Carl Ford's testimony!!! Bolton's failure to follow State Department procedure!!! The fact like so many neo conservatives he does let the facts get in the way of anything he wants to do. Bolton is not even a credible critic of the UN. He is childish, self absorbed, sissy!!! I wish there was a real policy argument to have!!! The problem is that the neo conservative viewpoint is devoid of any intellectual thought. But Jonah like all good totalitarians you must perpetuate the lie. You must ignore the facts and keep up the grand illusion regardless of how the rest of us are laughing you.