For his July 8th “Bleat”, James Lileks drops a load of dung on Michael Moore:
Again, the high-school-level thinking: “the rest of the world.” It’s simplistic to identify Iran, Iraq and North Korea as evil. It’s simplistic to state in the immediate wake of 9/11 that nations are either with the terrorists, or the United States. But it’s a sign of complex nuanced thinking to say that “the rest of the world . . . looks at us with disdain and disgust.” Yes, the world poured out its heart; it cost them nothing. Hearts are easily tipped and just as easily refilled. When the French newspaper said “We are all Americans now” it sounded nice, and I suppose it was, but in retrospect it looks as if there was an undercurrent of appeasement and surrender: we are all Americans because we are all victims in a sense, non? We ceased to earn the precious coin of French approval when we fired the chief procurer for their favorite customer, Iraq. C’est dommage. We can live with it.
Wait until France gets a hard shot in the nose. Wait until France reacts with some nasty work. They’ll get a golf-clap from the chattering class over here and a you-go-girl from Red America. France could nuke an Algerian terrorist camp and the rest of the world would tut-tut for a day, then ask if the missiles France used were for sale. And of course the answer would be oui.
[…]
There you have it. He wants the flag to stand for clean water. This from a man who waddles up to the deep well of American freedom, fumbles with his zipper, and pisses in it.
Read the rest, it’s well worth the time.