The other day, a reader sent me a hat — well, not a hat, exactly, but a link about a hat. The link was to the Adidas company, and the hat showed a hammer and sickle. The ad copy read, “Show your love for the former USSR during training time in this adidas Marx A-Flex Russia cap, featuring a six-panel low-crown fit, deep pre-curved brim,” etc. I was going to give you the link — here — but the hat is gone. Instead, we read, “This product is temporarily out of stock.” But this hat became a minor cause célèbre in the conservative, or anti-Communist, blogosphere, and you can see the hat here (for example). My reader said, “Just the thing I need to go with my Che T-shirt!” Just the thing indeed. I tend to give people a pass on this Commie-chic stuff. They know not what they do. But some of them do — some of them do know. And I know it especially pains people from Communist countries, or former Communist countries, to see the hammer and sickle, nice as you please. For some people, the symbol is just a piece of kitsch. For others: It means misery, enslavement, mass murder, hell. ‐The Che stuff is one of my pet peeves. And here is another: the denigration of smaller countries that have been part of the coalition in Iraq. These countries have been constantly sneered at, by people who oppose the war altogether. “Oh, Albania’s onboard, hurray!” I have long thought of something Donald Rumsfeld once told me, early in the war — I thought of it last fall, when I visited Iraq and saw Marines from Tonga. Tonga! Ha, ha, ha! Rumsfeld said, Yes, these countries may be small, and people can laugh. But what if it took some political courage to send troops to Iraq, and some personal courage, too? And what if those troops constitute a decent percentage of the particular country’s armed forces? Do people ever think of that? No, of course not. But I thought of it — once more — when reading last week about a ceremony in El Salvador. Here is an Associated Press report:

Salvadoran President Tony Saca has declared the country’s participation in Iraq a “mission accomplished,” as the country honors the last returning contingent of soldiers who served there. [Doesn’t the president know the phrase “mission accomplished” is radioactive? If he does know, he doesn’t care, and good for him.]
More than 3,000 Salvadoran soldiers have served in Iraq performing reconstruction work since 2003. The last contingent of about 200 returned Feb. 7, ending Latin America’s military presence there.
El Salvador says the troops carried out 353 water treatment, education, health care, road and electricity projects.
Five Salvadoran soldiers were killed and 20 wounded during the five-year deployment.
Saca distributed medals to soldiers who served in Iraq at a sports stadium on Saturday.

Laugh all you want — I think it’s great. I bet Iraqis do, too. ‐

With his nation’s economy in shambles, President Robert Mugabe threw himself a lavish 85th birthday party Saturday, using the opportunity to call on Zimbabwe’s last white farmers to leave.
“Land distribution will continue. It will not stop,” Mugabe said in Chinhoyi, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Harare. “The few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms as they have no place there.”

The sheer race-hatred expressed by Mugabe and other African leaders is one of the great undercommented-on phenomena of our time. ‐Got another headline for you: “Algerian minister refutes US rights criticism.” What’s the story? “The Algerian interior minister Monday denied allegations of human rights abuses contained in a U.S. State Department report and advised Washington to ‘sweep its own doorstep,’ referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bay.” (For the complete article, go here.) That reminds me of the great Soviet line from the 1950s and ’60s: “But what about the Negroes in the South?” I am also reminded of the harm the American Left can do, around the world: They paint Gitmo as some kind of disgraceful Orwellian hellhole, which it certainly is not — and people such as Algerian interior ministers follow suit. Look, even Barack Obama’s attorney general — our new AG, Eric Holder — says that Gitmo is an admirable facility. But it’s a little late for that now, isn’t it? I think of a point a major foreign-policy official made to me, in December. He made it forcefully, and it left an impression on me: A lot of people failed to realize that, in going after President Bush and damaging him, they were damaging America more broadly, throughout the world. They may not have intended to do the latter; they may have intended only to hurt Bush. But they did more than that. ‐This is something interesting — I quote from a press release: “The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) has launched a Chinese-language edition published and distributed in China.” And Victor Navasky, the famed old leftist who is chairman of CJR, said this: “Given the vastly different press traditions in our respective countries, we consider the advent of CJRChinese a major cultural breakthrough.” Vastly different press traditions! Yeah, we have a free press, and the PRC has none. We can say what we like, and, in China, if you criticize the Party, you could be jailed, tortured, or killed. Thanks, Victor! And will you preach to the Chinese what a sweetheart Alger Hiss was? I have one hope for this new publication: In the Arab world — particularly the Palestinian territories — people are amazed to behold the Israeli press, where people criticize the government gaily. They cannot do that in their own countries, of course. As Navasky and his people savage the United States and the rest of the free West, maybe Chinese readers will think, “Geez: Why can’t I do that?” And you know what I mean by that! Reminds me of an old joke Reagan used to tell: An American tells a Russian, “I can march by the White House and cry, ‘Down with Reagan!’” The Russian says, “That’s no big deal: I can march by the Kremlin and cry, ‘Down with Reagan!’” ‐In recent days, I’ve been thinking about friends, and how hard it is when they clash. What brought the question to the fore was the fuss about Rush — about Rush Limbaugh. David Frum went after him hard. I love David Frum, and he has long been one of my favorite people. I love Rush, too. What a stinker of a situation. And John Derbyshire went after Rush as well! I would have thought Derb a natural Rush fan. Derb loves verbal combat, and irreverence, and jokes, and songs, and fun. I would have thought Rush right up his alley. They have a great deal in common, despite their different accents! But no . . . And how about the episode last fall, when Christopher Buckley endorsed Barack Obama, and a flap between him and National Review ensued? That was pain. I’ve been a Chris Buckley fan since Wet Work. Michael Steele got in a dumb flap with Rush. (Steele’s fault, not Rush’s.) I was a Michael Steele fan before it was cool. (Is it now?) Wrote an enthusiastic piece about him in 2005. (Here.) In the last week or two, some conservatives — certainly those who correspond with me — have said that Steele lacks guts. Actually, no: No one who lives life as a black conservative lacks guts. Quite the contrary. But Steele’s performance as party chairman has given some of us pause. Let me reach a little farther back: I remember, years ago, when Bill Kristol first went after — or had sharp disagreements with — Donald Rumsfeld. That was hard. Whom to side with? Who was right? I thought the world of both of them, and still do. And then there was the blood over Sarah Palin. Several weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room of one of my favorite people in the whole world: a serene, smart, principled, spiritual, and exemplary woman. Also, by the way, a lifelong Republican (and I mention that for a reason). As we’re sitting there, she lets loose this blast against Governor Palin. It sort of took my breath away. My only consolation was that it was quite ignorant: I just think she swallowed a mainstream-media caricature of Palin. A five-minute meeting with the governor would clear that up, no problem. Clarissa Pryce-Jones once told me something interesting: She said that the Suez crisis tore apart British society — that is, the political-intellectual core of it. People would not speak; they didn’t speak for years. She said the Iraq War, and the War on Terror more broadly, did something similar. (Mrs. Pryce-Jones’s dad, Lord Caccia, was sailing to Washington to become ambassador there, at the time Suez broke out.) I’ve been speaking about friends. Let me bring up something related: What happens when your most trusted authorities disagree — disagree with one another? For example, say David Pryce-Jones and John O’Sullivan disagreed on some aspect of the EU: How would I know what to think? And what if, oh, James M. Buchanan and Martin Feldstein disagreed on some important aspect of economic policy? I might have to think for myself — perish the thought. P.S. You may recall the great Microsoft/Netscape clash. Almost all the big conservative legal people were on Microsoft’s side. But Bob Bork disagreed — he was with Netscape. (And his support had been sought by both sides.) So great was my respect for Bork, that shook me up. You know: 99 conservative legal minds on one side, Bork on the other — a pretty fair fight. ‐Last night in Carnegie Hall, I was covering Yevgeny Kissin, the Russian pianist. And, at intermission, a critic friend of mine introduced me to an elegant lady of some years. He said, “Jay, her father was Lenin’s doctor.” I paused for a while to take this in. She said, “Faint!” I said, hopefully, “Did he emigrate?” She said, matter-of-factly, “He was purged.” I said, “I’m so sorry.” She said, “So am I.” I said, “But I’m so glad you’re here.” She said, “So am I.” You sometimes forget the widespread evil the Communist Revolution wrought. ‐I’m going to mention something I mentioned in yesterday’s Impromptus — please forgive the repetition: I will give a talk at Stanford Law School on Wednesday, March 11. That’s in Room 180 of the law school. The time is 12:30. The title of the talk is “‘Question Authority’: New Applications for an Old Bumper Sticker.” I understand the public is welcome — and I know the Bay Area is crawling with NRO readers. (Seriously — it’s just that many of them are closeted.) True, this is a lunchtime talk. But I’ve always heard that conservatives and Republicans are idle rich. So surely none of you has to work . . . ‐Want Impromptus via RSS? Go here. #JAYBOOK# ‐You have perhaps seen stories about — er, “reusable wipes.” They are designed to replace toilet paper as we know it. And they are the latest in environmental consciousness. You can get a load of these wipes here. (I mean nothing by “load,” I swear.) From what I can tell, reusable wipes are the new test of green fidelity. And I’d love to ask Al Gore: Are you down with reusable wipes? Or are you still clinging to planet-destroying Charmin? Ay, caramba. ‐I got tons more for you — almost an infinite amount — but let’s end with a little Fun with Names. A reader writes,

I’d like to share with you a name from my childhood. My maternal grandpa supposedly had a card-playing friend named Bert Spert. I never thought the man was real, but rather made up to make me giggle every time his name was mentioned. I thought that was the best name ever invented.
One day, my grandpa and I were out to breakfast, and he waved someone over to our table for a chat. He introduced me to none other than Bert Spert. My reaction took the man by surprise. I bounced up and down on the cushion of the booth saying, “Oh my God, you’re real! Bert Spert really exists!” I was so taken with excitement. And I was amazed at how well the name fit the physical profile of the man: He stood 4’9”!
My grandpa made him show me his license, to prove the two of them were not pulling my leg. I think Bert got more of a kick out of this than I did.

Remember when Bush 41 showed that schoolkid his license, when the schoolkid doubted he was President Bush? Priceless. Have a great weekend, dearhearts, and see you later.