BULLSHIT. Sometimes I worry that this political writing exercise is just a way of hearing my voice thrown back at myself, like an echo. But then I consider the credentialed journalists who like to have public conversations with imaginary friends...

"What follows is a fair summation of about 20 or so dialogues I had recently with a series of Europeans," writes Victor Davis Hanson, who then proceeds to "report" a series of Rowan and Martin routines in which (though he labels himself with the cheapest of ironies the "Dumb American") the European always plays the patsy:

Europeans: In some ways you're right. After all, over half our population now believes that you -- not the North Koreans or the Iranians -- are the real threat to world peace.

Dumb American: I suppose a similar poll 65 years ago would have revealed the same thing about your fear of a unilateral Churchill and your ease with a multilateral Hitler, who seemed to get a nod from the Russians, Italians, Spanish, Eastern Europeans, and Japanese when he went into Poland. But in any case, we wish you luck with the Iranian mullahs. And as far as Tehran goes, for your sake — as long as we are not yet in missile range -- we hope that your Nobel Prizes, trade credits, lectures, and so-called "soft power" provide better deterrence than an ABM.

Europeans: Our disagreement is not so simplistic as that. But part of the problem is that Americans simply do not know much outside their shores and listen to silly Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for their information.

Yes, it happened just that way, folks. Ol' Vic was hot, he was on fire! Why, his spontaneous comments sounded almost like the sort something he'd spent some time polishing and adding em-dashes to! Und zose Europeans, zey sound so pretentious, no?

An especially interesting aspect of our especially interesting era is that, the more power conservatives get, the deeping into this kind of fantasy they retreat. Why is it, do you suppose? Maybe they're more sensitive than we thought, and can't stand the smell of bullshit even when it's their own.