Wampum

In route to Geneva I was thinking about Samantha Power calling Senator Clinton a "monster" when the phrase jumped right out of the pages of the Guardian -- Simon Jenkins' Bigotry and violence made Paisley and Adams the Taliban of Europe. Here's the quote:

I first encountered Paisley as a young reporter covering a bible-bashing rally in the grounds of Stormont Castle. It was a miserable, freezing afternoon and raining hard. The faces of the drummer boys were mauve with cold, as were the bare legs of the majorettes. The men round Paisley wore bowler hats. It was not an appetising event, yet thousands of Ulster Protestants were there.

Then the big man began. Like a revivalist preacher from the deep south, Paisley ranted over the sodden slopes of Stormont. It was electrifying and archaic. The curses of God were called down on "old red socks", the Pope, the "anti-Christ", whom Paisley was later to heckle with primitive discourtesy in the European parliament. Catholics were damned - "they breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin" - and King Billy glorified. The crowd sang hymns and roared. It was like watching a mad Celtic druid blessing the Brythonic hordes before confronting the Roman army.

The man was a monster, a fanatic, a hangover from the middle ages.

Professor Power is no longer a "senior foreign policy adviser" to Senator Obama. Fine. There's no shortage of intelligent people Senator Obama can go to for foreign policy advice who don't call the people they disagree with anything worse than people they disagree with.