Is this anything?: I was listening to a story on the radio this morning about Condi Rice’s recent visit to Australia. While she was giving a speech there, a couple of students stood up and began shouting at her, calling her a war criminal and worse than the devil and all the other things you shout at someone when you want them to take you seriously. After they were done, Rice more or less said, “It’s good to see that democracy is alive and well in Australia.”

It occurred to me that I’ve seen this sort of protest 100 times, and every time the protested speaker says the same thing, “It is nice to see that democracy and free speech flourish here; if only our enemies allowed people to be so free and democratic and shouty.” But it also occurred to me that the speaker is only able to say “it is nice to see democracy is alive and well here” after the protester has been dragged bodily from the auditorium by a cadre of plainclothes armed guards and kicked out for speaking her mind. Hmmm.