Mark Steyn on ‘The James Taylor Doctrine’

Mark Steyn writes:

All you gotta do is call, and the White House will put you on hold while you listen to James Taylor’s Greatest Hits.

The doctor is in jail because he’s a friend of America. The lawyer is dead because he’s a friend of a friend of America. How come the United States could plan a flawless operation to bust into Osama’s compound and put a bullet in him, but it couldn’t do a thing for the operation’s indispensable human intelligence?

This is usually the point where I quote the great Bernard Lewis’ words when we chanced to be on a panel discussion a few years back — that America risked being seen as harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend. And so it goes, from Iran to the Islamic State to the morgue of the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar.