Much as I would prefer to do otherwise, I am inclined to take seriously the facile drivel from beardedbruce, because I think many, many millions of Americans agree with it. Probably they are driven by fear and uncertainty, which the present Admin does all in its power to whip up. Anxieties are likely to increase as it becomes ever more plain that America is incapable of achieving its foreign-policy objectives by brute force.

Beardedbruce accuses someone of putting "the sentence before the trial" - blissfully overlooking how this sits with his own knee-jerk views. For instance, in response to allegations of government-sponsored torture, he spells out who his enemies are and then asks what part we don't understand. The part I don't understand is why Iraqis, liberated by their friend America, should be assumed to be bombers, murderers etc, when they have not been charged with anything, never mind tried.

Beardedbruce is disingenuous in pretending anyone would be as concerned about what goes on in other countries as they are about what goes on in their name. And his claim that if the allegations were true we would have heard about it before now, is risible. If it had been left to CBS, we would never have seen photos from Abu Ghraib, never mind the memo suggesting that torture is politcally sanctioned. So much for freedom of information, in the land of freedom.

Re Clint's comment about Croatia, it is not helpful to my mind that an overwhelming majority of Americans cling to a simple shorthand whereby Commie = bad, capitalist = good. Comparing the Russian and Chinese economies since the wall came down would be instructive for a start.

Cultures and arts that once flourished under Communist patronage are now in decline all over Eastern Europe, not least in Croatia. Equally many communities are much more fragmented and unstable now than was the case under communism, as greed, avarice and growth for growth's sake become the main economic drivers, exactly as spelled out by Keynes in his creed for capitalism.

In fact the kind of communism that Croatia experienced as part of Tito's Yugoslavia is now remembered with affection by many Croatians, notwithstanding that for reasons of history going back centuries, many there always yearned for independence rather than mere autonomy. (Tito spurned Soviet influence, traded with the west and helped found the "non-aligned" movement, which in itself demonstrates that communism, like capitalism, can come in various flavours.) As the Warsaw Pact collapsed, America rushed to advance the credentials of Franjo Tudjman, because he was a "westernised" successful businessman, just like Chalabi in Iraq. He also turned out be an autocratic dictator and reinstated the emblems of WW2 Croatia, under which a catholic-fascist regime installed by the Axis powers masterminded the murder of nearly a million ethnic Serbs, Jews and Roma, often with hideous cruelty. Those who to this day applaud the atrocities of 1941-45 are foremost in voicing the views that Clint has heard.

I shall watch the Greg-brucie wager with only academic interest, as there's so little to choose between Bush and Kerry. Since becoming the Dem nominee presumptive, Kerry has been pathetic, so far as he has been visible at all. His problem is that he needs the votes of America's beardedbruces to have any chance of winning.