I thought the article was interesting. I mean, it's fine to question the consistency of the Dalai Lama's statements about gulf war 2. What bugs me is the moral condescension of the progressive left toward the Dalai Lama's followers--ie he's a "peddler" of pacifism, part Ghandi part PT Barnum, as the article put it, or he "makes people feel good," as if that were some kind of crime.
(By the way, a similar attitude was evinced on this list toward Bernard-Henri Levy as a guest on Doug's show. The guy is funny, can turn a phrase, and he's not without something to say. ("God is dead but my hair is fabulous"--can you imagine O'Reilly saying something that funny? Or Rush? Come on!) But evidently being funnier than Chomsky and to the right of Michael Moore makes him--and Doug! (jeez!)--automatically supsect.)
Indeed, it's precisely because the Dalai Lama can reach such big audiences and make them feel good that some might say it's important for the left to try and claim him as their own. I mean, what do you think the Bush administration is doing? Do you think they are really into the Dalai Lama's teaching? And, despite 3 years of nothing but bad news, the republicans still stand a good shot to keep control of the executive and legislative branches next year.
I sometimes wonder what progressives think a mass progressive movement would look like--as if it would include no one with illusions, no one who didn't care about their idol's take on the Korean war, no one who just wanted to feel good, no one for whom doing prostrations and saying prayers was pleasurable. Everyone will be completely rational, and make fully consistent moral and political choices. We'll all read Marx before bedtime. And soon, the whole world will be better.
Christian