Tristero on the lunacy of the Pontius Pilate neocons:

As Anatol Lieven said, to title a book “An End to Evil” as Perle and Frum did, is insane.

Each day, as I peer into the abyss of today’s political surreality, I feel blessed to have access to a higher authority on man’s place in the universe: my own personal Monty Python.

When I was first exposed to them via Another Monty Python Record and Monty Python’s Previous Record, I thought they were merely very funny. What I didn’t understand was that they were preparing me for the First World’s trip down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole.

Like Bush and Blair’s foreign policy, Python’s humor is founded on the absurdities of the human mind.

Decades before Perle and Frum’s comedy stylings, Cleese and company pre-emptively illustrated the neo-con mindset in “How to Rid the World of All Known Diseases”:

Alan: Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynecologist. And this week on ’How to do it’ we’re going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here’s Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.

Jackie: Hello, Alan.

Alan: Hello, Jackie.

Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there’ll never be any diseases ever again.

Alan: Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.

Noel: Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we’ll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.

It’s as simple as that.