Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

The days when the words 'Hollywood actor' framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate consultant pundit and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.

A fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.

The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust book: Follies: A National Trust Guide which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is by calling the architect mad and by laughing at the architecture.