A long, long time ago, I voiced an offhand fear that some parts of the left (and far right) in this country were so disenchanted with America, so contemptuous of president Bush, so full of misplaced attraction to the thugs and despots of the developing world, that they could mount what amounts to a fifth column in the event of serious conflict. For the new class especially, the journalists and academics and chatterers, some of whose loyalties extend only to their latest publicist, the notion of simple loyalty to country is and was, as Orwell, noted a contemptible emotion. I was denounced for such a thought – even though it was an aside in an essay devoted to celebrating America. But it turns out I was right. My piece opposite deals with the fulminations of a Columbia University professor, Nicholas de Genova, who blurted out what some of his fellow leftwing academics truly feel: that they want the United States to lose this war, and if that means that Saddam wins, so be it. There is no question in my mind that that is also a simmering sentiment among several important media institutions, like the BBC and, to a lesser extent, the New York Times. (Reading the Sunday New York Times yesterday was to read a paper whose editors have already assumed – or can barely conceal the conjecture – that the war is lost.) And now we have Peter Arnett, mouthing Ba’ath Party propaganda, lying about declining support for the war in the U.S., sucking up to the Stalinists who control the Iraqi police state, and generally making a huge ass of himself. This interview is disgusting. It is propaganda. It could demoralize Iraqi resistance to Saddam; it could therefore increase the likelihood of a longer war and cost American lives. This after barely two weeks of warfare. Two weeks.
THE AMERICAN PRIME MINISTER: Blair has an approval rating in the U.S. of 72 percent – five points higher than the president. Here’s why.
The Dish 