Much, much linkage to this polemic by John Le Carré, from the Times of London. I would sit up and listen if for no other reason than that I still await each new Le Carré novel with bated breath and consider him one of the most discerning observers of human nature (and human deception) on the planet. For me, the head-turning observation in this essay is his report that, in a recent poll, one in two Americans has been hoodwinked enough by the dysadministration’s bait-and-switch to believe that the Saddam at hand, rather than the bin Laden in the bush, is responsible for the terrorist attacks on the US. We really live in a nation of contemptible gullibility, don’t we? I wouldn’t care so much if they weren’t going to impose their vicious stupidity in a rain of death and destruction on the innocents of the third world, and make my children and their children pay for it.

Of course Le Carré (and those of us who point to his message too?) is going to get savaged by the warblogger set; here’s Lileks bleating about him. It’s the usual bottomfeeding quest for inconsistencies, mixed with name-calling and kneejerk abhorrence for any challenges to one’s all-enfolding and self-justifying security blanket of bellicosity. But read his rant carefully, with your eye to the forest for the trees, and see if strikes you as anything more than trying to besmirch the person whose opinions challenge and offend you.

Then there’s this: Moon Shadow — on the Washington influence of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the World Unification Church, which is reputed to be responsible for including North Korea in the Axis of Evil®. By Wayne Madsen, a Washington-based investigative journalist.