As Krugman has pointed out, Mahathir's comments are a sign of just how far hatred and contempt for the US and its intellectual, moral and emotional positions has grown.
Now the WAPO weighs in with a demand that Bush be as sensitive to demagoguery in his own backyard as he is in other people's.
In fact, the full text only adds to the questions about his suitability. At the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Ore., last June, just after he received his third star and was named to his Pentagon post, Gen. Boykin said, "Don't you worry about what these courts say. Our God reigns supreme."
Some of his comments also raise questions about Gen. Boykin's fitness to oversee military intelligence, questions of religious bigotry aside. He describes taking photographs during a helicopter tour before leaving Mogadishu, Somalia, and then finding an unexplained black mark on the developed pictures, which he explains as a manifestation of evil. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your enemy," he tells the Good Shepherd audience. "It is not Osama bin Laden, it is the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders." He also offers this take on Sept. 11: "Whether you realize it or not, I believe there were at least two more airplanes that were headed for major installations in this country. I believe that there was one headed for the White House, and there was one headed for the Capitol, but they were thwarted by the hand of God."
Gen. Boykin's comments have already become political fodder -- for those who push the belief that the United States is waging war on Islam, not on terrorism, and for those who would excuse other forms of religious intolerance.
Maybe they are waking up at last? lets hope so. What worries me is not the religious bigotry, there is more than enough of that to go round, but the apparently delusional and hallucinatory state of a vital player in the US military and intelligence community.
With people leaping to a conclusion that black mark on a photo is a mark of Satan, there is no competition from the tinfoil hat brigade, this guy is a loop, and presumably, given his position and the lack of criticism or awareness of the danger he represents, he is not alone.