One of Insty’s most tedious and grating tropes of late has been to mention one of the many atrocities carried out by Saddam Hussein or another of our enemies and then ask when those darn peaceniks are going to rise up in protest, since they’re so eager to demonstrate against the American government’s misdeeds. I guess it was almost sort of cute the first couple of times, but just in case anyone really thinks there’s something deeply revealing about the fact that these things don’t occasion protests: of course nobody’s going to bother holding a demonstration against some tyrant’s latest horrorshow. Why? Well, because democracies at least nominally care about public pressure and public opinion. Despots don’t. Protesting a tyrant is just a waste of time. Now can we move on? There’s something unseemly about watching a law professor behave like a five year old for months at a time.