Jonah: These imputations of ulterior motive are not worth bothering with.
I get a steady drizzle of them, rising briefly to a downpour when I say
anything friendly about the Jews/Israel: “Trying to ingratiate yourself
with the neocons, eh, Mr. D?” If I say anything *rude* about the
Jews/Israel the drizzle goes: “Trying to ingratiate yourself with the
paleocons, eh, Mr. D?” If I am nice to George W. Bush: “Still hoping for
that speechwriting job, eh, Mr. D?” If I am mean to George W. Bush:
“Trying to draw attention to yourself by taking a contrarian position, eh,
Mr. D?” Et cetera, et cetera, et bloody boring cetera. Forget them. I
write what I think. I don’t have ulterior motives and I don’t know anyone
in this line of work that I suspect of such motives. Hardly anybody’s mind
works like that. The only people whose minds *do* work like that, in fact,
are the dipwads who cook up these kinds of hypotheses.