David Warren reviews the recent remarks of Bush and Blair upon the fifth anniversary of 9/11 as well as reflect upon our (the West's) chances of survival in a climate where a good portion of our own hold our leaders in contempt for simply identifying the enemy.

"I frankly admire both Bush and Blair, as courageous politicians, with open minds, doing their best within the limits of what is politically possible in their respective spheres. They are both towering figures, in comparison to the little men who oppose them. We won't know what trouble is, until the little men replace them."

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"We have a huge fifth column in the West, and it is not the Muslim immigrants. They become radicalized only because our 'victim culture' encourages them to nurture their grievances. Yet most, despite temptation, remain good, decent people, doing their share of the West's work.

"Our real enemy is within us, in the immense constituency of the half-educated narcissists pouring from our universities each year -- that glib, smug, liberal, and defeatist "victim culture" itself, that inhabits the academy, our media, our legal establishment, the bureaucratic class. The opinion leaders of our society, who live almost entirely off the avails of taxation, make their livelihoods biting the hands that feed them, and undermining the moral order on which our solidarity depends."

Glib, smug, liberal, defeatist, half-educated narcissists. Can they be characterized any more accurately than that? Among that list of criticisms none is so damning and potentially damaging to our fate as "half-educated." In many ways it is far worse than ignorance because it is common nature to take ourselves too seriously when we seem to "know" something.
After being victimized by my own ignorance (and Karen Armstrong) on the subject of Islam (I allowed Ms. Armstrong to be my only, assumedly reliable, source), I well understand that it is human to "learn something" and take a little pride in the "knowing." Very few of us, however, are scholars and none of those few are without bias. It is good to abide by the Roman law principle, Hear the Other Side.

An open mind is a rare one these days and it is a rare fellow indeed who honors objectivity.

Glib? Smug? I fear not for long. We have an earnest enemy well-aware of our weaknesses and I suspect that those who have ridiculed those who refuse to look the other way while our enemy strengthens will be among the first brought to earth, should these monsters prevail, by a new reality.