Giving Us the Leftovers

[an altered headline]

They’re at it again. Today’s dish of the day is lightly boiled American General with a garnish of Rumsfeld. There’s also a touch of sauce, rendered piquant by irony. They hope you’ll enjoy the dish, which has been placed initially on the main menu to ensure that plenty of customers get to try it.

The irony? Ah, bien sur! It’s a secret blend of bitterness that yesterday they had to change their article about Mahathir so ignominiously. Now we find the Malaysians (being given the floor by the BBC) saying that we misunderstood. We did not. Incidentally, this is the same article they posted yesterday, just ‘updated’. Bon chance then that the BBC had a “comparable” fresh titbit about an American general to offset the ‘bigot’ accusations that no doubt have flown at them.

Notice the artistic arrangement of the dish though- our eyes do influence our taste buds you know. ‘Donald Rumsfeld has declined to criticise’. Never mind that this was a General off duty in a private (churches are self-selecting) gathering, caught on poor quality video tape using the language of religion in an arena where the nuances are respected and understood, where ‘Satan’s kingdom’ is a theological concept. The implied parallel with Mahathir speaking at a international forum, addressing the 1 billion plus Muslim world and heads of state, with the watching world, and trying to make a coherent case for racial genocide, is absolutely risible. The General’s comments should not have reached the news at all. Mahathir’s should have been front page at the top- and slated comprehensively. (BTW- forgive the use of French- no offence to them is intentional).