Michael Ledeen is unhappy. He has a "very bad feeling" about Gordon Brown. Well, in many respects so do I, though not, I suspect for the same reasons. Anyway, like his fellow happy warriors at The Corner Mr. Ledeen is appalled by Brown's "Orwellian" preference for trying not to give the impression that the United Kingdom is locked in a holy war against every Muslim living in Britain. Majorities owe minorities sensitivity (however unfashionable a concept this may be on the American right these days) and the test of language and policy these days is not whether it makes the speaker feel good and tough and manly but whether it has a chance of exacerbating or alleviating a delicate, problematic situation. And while there is clearly (and obviously) an important ideological aspect to the struggle against this kind of terrorism, it's also the case that the battle to defend "British values" and "our way of life" is also a police and intelligence operation rather more than it is any kind of war that can be won by military means. This was, of course, also true of the long struggle against the IRA. Still, this is all too soft for the National Review crowd. Which makes Mr Ledeen's closing comments unfortunately revealing:

"Maybe the Gordon Brown government will come to be seen as a test case for the multiculti Left's approach to 'the war (shhh),' and if it fails quickly enough, it might help us sort out the real choices for November '08."

How might one measure the "failure" of Brown's policy? Presumably by the number of terrorist attacks on--and thus civilian deaths in --the United Kingdom. This will, it seems, be a *good* [ital] thing since it will clarify the choice American voters will face next year. A price worth paying, don't you think? Dead Britons to persuade you to vote Republican. With friends like these, who needs enemies? --Alex Massie