the faithful will be relieved to know alberto fernandez—the state dept employe who interviewed on al jazeera and described our iraq policy with words translated from arabic as "arrogance" and "stupidity" (originally denied by the govt)—has recanted.

indeed, an apologist said he meant it "figuratively, not literally."

i gotta admit i'm stumped. how do you make arrogance and stupidity figurative?

besides, even if i were to concede—hypothetically—that the iraq policy wasn't literally arrogant, you've got to admit it was stupid.