Ignatieff's Mea Culpa

Bouncing off something a friend posted on Facebook. I read Michael Ignatieff's NY Times piece. Notes:

• Is he always this long-winded? Or is it just becuase he's having to say sorry that it is difficult?
• That's the longest I have seen any one take to call someone a rich brat who's caused a mess.
• I like the fact that he only blames the troubles of Iraq on the last 35 years and doesn't go for the Western Establishment's usual "hundreds/thousands of years" that X non-white population has been dysfunctional.
• I agree with the Achilles Heel theory that some folks mentions--that this is basically a way of neutralizing something that could hurt him politically. But he is, in effect, saying "It's not my fault; Harvard made me do it." Which only confirms that he's now all politician--and not the kind of politician folks love, neither.
  

The other issue a friend raised was why he said all that in the NY Times and not a Canadian magazine. My reaction is that I think that is but appropriate. His support for the Iraq War was as an academic/pundit at an American institution--you could say as an American pundit, in a manner of thinking. Or you could say that he work in support of the War was done while at the center/capital/seat of the empire, and it is only fair that he make his mea culpa's in the same forum--The Forum in Rome itself, if I may use the metaphor. In fact, the fact that he did in that forum might actually mean that it is a real conversion/Road to Damascus moment or what-have-you.

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