Why are these scumbags so scummy?

John "War Nerd" Dolan got a job, as a lecturer at the American University of Iraq. Hilarity ensued. You bet. It's a tale of un-fantastic right-wing academics, a kind of glaring dullness, a total lack of character, and an endless supply of raw cash. It so happens that John needed that more than anything else, so good luck to him. Read the whole thing - what stands out is the vast gap between the neo-con obsession with The Western Canon! Classicism! Principle! Courage! and the petty, provincial, small-mindedness that people like Joshua "Not The Blogger" Marshall practice in their lives. It's not even the incompetence. It's the style that gives them away.

The other interesting thing in the piece is John Agresto's role. Again and again, he turns up wondering why a string of horrible political thugs treated him with disrespect. Lynne Cheney, his old boss, seems to have been a really awful human being close up. Who knew? But somehow, it never crosses his mind to wonder why this keeps happening every time he associates with the Cheneys or Bill Bennett or some other horrific political gargoyle. It's....full of bastards, just this particular astronaut isn't going to get out of the ship.

I also loved the notion of a neo-conservative as someone who got mugged by reality and now never goes into town for fear of running into reality again. A lesser writer would say that he started carrying a gun in order to shoot reality. However, that would imply some kind of grand, tragic struggle against brute fate. You can't have tragedy without dignity, and that's one thing the administration of the American University of Iraq doesn't have.

This reminded me of two things, or rather the other way around. If you want Mitt Romney to speak, you've got to take a bulk order for his booky wook. Hence the book is a bestseller (for whatever that means in today's book trade). Similarly, 'bagger Sharron Angle's campaign raised $14m and paid $12m right back to the political consultants who organised the donation drive.

The other thing was this documentary series on YouTube about Americans and steroids. Two points come to mind - the enduring role of the quack, and a sort of grinding optimism. And this quote: "Everyone wants to be a monster."

A critical point, though - I'm fairly sure the sheaf of documents one of the doctors waves while reading out a list of horrible side effects that turn out to relate to vitamin C is from an open-access "adverse event reporting system", which basically gathers anything anyone anywhere feels inclined to report. They aren't verified in any way. Anti-vaccine people often abuse this.

Fortunately, someone's done the actual journalism and documented that the ties between multilevel marketing, quackery, and extreme-right politics aren't just style, they're organisational and financial. It goes back a while, too.