30 silver euros

Lileks wonders about those leftards who trash America on foreign soil:

Why do American politicians of the Democratic flavor take such solemn pleasure in trashing their country before foreign audiences? Is there some upcoming election for Global Emperor, with all the primaries in Arab nations?

Never mind Jimmy Carter, who can be counted on to bad-mouth the United States regardless of the venue. No, it's guys like Bill Clinton and Al Gore who truly mystify. The speaker's fees can't be that great...

It takes a cotton-candy-headed progressive who believes that a weak America will be more loved than a strong one, and hence more successful...

Clinton was in full weather-vane mode in Qatar last month, denouncing the infamous Danish cartoons. "So now what are we going to do?" he asked. "Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" Well, if history is a guide, the Europeans can probably multitask and handle both...

Still, that was nothing compared to the utterances at the Jeddah Economic Forum of Clinton's former No. 2, Gore. Whatever wax they use on the Saudis' marble floors, Gore's forehead was shiny with it by the time he was finished.

As an Associated Press account of the speech put it, Gore said Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. Yes, indeed: The infamous internment of September 2001, when the government indiscriminately shoveled millions into camps ringed with flaming trenches. Or "FDR-villes," as they were known, in deference to the strategy's founding father...

It would be wrong, of course, to suggest that they're just fond of the 30 pieces of silver they get for showing up. They're probably paid in euros.

or oil vouchers...