“It’s the worst administration I’ve seen since I went there in 1951. The whole [conservative] trend is a very artificial one made up essentially of three main currents. One is the Christian current, which is isolated from the rest of the country. [But] it’s a lot of people, 70-80 million. This is George Bush’s main constituency. Second, the neo-conservative movement, which has been developing over the period since the end of the 1960s, as a reaction to the 1960s. But it is now narrower and narrower and more focused. That’s why you have people like [Richard] Perle and [Paul] Wolfowitz in positions of power, because they’ve made an alliance with the isolationist right wing within America… And the third group that feeds into this is the Washington establishment, these think tanks in Washington which have taken the intellectual class and turned them into policy salesmen who have no peer review… The opposition to the war is, I think, an opposition to all of that. It’s an opposition to the fundamentalists, who stand, for example, against the theory of evolution. And these are the people pushing for the war. And that’s why I think the movement against the war, despite the fact that it is flagging a bit because of loyalty to the boys and girls abroad, as some of the Democrats are saying now, will grow. I think that Bush will not have a second presidency. In fact, I and many others are convinced that Bush will try to negate the 2004 elections: we’re dealing with a putschist, conspiratorial, paranoid deviation that’s very anti- democratic.” – Edward Said, hallucinating with the editors of Arab News. Wolfowitz in an alliance with the isolationist right? But then, I guess, where do you start?
IN DEFENSE OF THE BEEB: “In light of all the bashing of the BBC, in which I have enthusiastically participated, please let me note a counter-example: Yesterday (Monday) there was an absolutely superb BBC interview with Amir Mousa, head of the Arab league. Mousa was wily and wanted to make only 2 points: the war in Iraq is unjust and opposed by most Arab governments and virtually all the Arab people, and give back the “occupied territories” (not clear whether this meant just the west bank or Israel proper too). The interviewer was respectfully persistent, and did an excellent job, let Mousa blather but pressed him on the hard questions, to which Mousa’s responses were pathetically flat and unconvincing. Mousa babbled development and democracy, the interviewer pointed out that very few Arabs have either. Interviewer did not allow PC notions of not offending Third World sensibilities limit his questioning. Excellent job, vastly superior to the vapidity of CNN or the cheerleading of Fox.” – more reader dissent on the Letters Page.
The Dish 