It is to puke.
Iggy just did another long feature interview with the UK's Observer.
To wit:
But what about his new fetish for patriotism? In the 1990s, Ignatieff reported from the Balkan wars, and he has written several books about the dangers of nationalism. Isn't it odd, now, to be praising as a virtue what he once suggested could so easily become a dangerous vice? "Yes, there is a very murderous nationalism out there, one based on purity. But there's also another nationalism, which we call patriotism, which is a love of country and is perfectly inclusive, and I don't think you can run a country unless you can appeal to it. You gotta reach down into something: some shared sense of common history, tradition, enterprise. You don't want to overdo it. You don't want to get sentimental about it. But [if it isn't there] you've got nothing to go on. Patriotism is the secret resource of a successful society."
His tone as he tells me this is slow, excessively careful and completely without irony, none of which would be surprising were he a career politician. Since when did irony and politics go? But Ignatieff used to be a writer. Listening to him now, it's as if he's been sedated, or body-snatched, or something. He's like a jazz man who's lost his sense of rhythm.
Read it [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/27/michael-ignatieff-interview-....
