The column isn’t really worth a detailed response. Wasn’t it just 2 weeks ago that people were taunting the Bush administration for coming out for universal health care in Iraq, but not here? Now the taunt is that it is zealously anti-government in both countries–although Hertzberg veers back and forth between these contradictory themes. What I liked most about the column was the conclusion: “Whatever one may think of the global democratic-imperial ambitions of the present Administration, they cannot long coexist with the combination of narrow greed and public neglect it thinks sufficient for what it is pleased to call the homeland. At some point—the sooner the better—a critical mass of Americans will notice.” Is that last sentence plaintive, or just pathetic? Whatever else one may think about Hertzberg’s prediction, it appears to be non-falsifiable. Do Hertzberg, Paul Krugman, and Tina Brown constitute a “critical mass”?