And quite reasonably too I might add. Josh Marshall lays out what he meant and raises the valid point that his remarks were aimed with an American audience and context in mind.
But the Internet being what it is, one’s audience can be far more diverse than a person might expect and thus the context within which the remarks will be read can be quite different. I had this brought home to me a week ago when I got a detailed and intelligent critique of my views on the EU from a man in Dakar, Senegal.
Although I suspect I do not entirely agree with all of Josh Marshall’s views on the subject, for the most part I actually do. His post is measured and intelligent and in reality there is not that much daylight between his and Natalija’s views either. What is more, the point that increased Natalija’s blood pressure was really more a matter of how she interpreted what was being said. As she is off on a business trip I doubt she will be posting herself for a few days but I did speak to her on the telephone, repeated the article to her and she does concede that perhaps she did read a more negative spin on the original piece than was really justified. In truth the recent ‘Free Slobodan Milosevic’ petition and associated procession of totalitarianism’s “useful idiots” has made her a tad sensitive on certain matters.
