Playing Cat-and-Mouse With A Life

For the first time, Mark Steyn has had a column pulled by the Telegraph in England. This was done because he emotions wern't acceptable. He had a column pulled by the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this year.

The life of Mr. Kenneth Bigley was turned into a political game. Because his captors sensed that they could exploit a potential weakness in the 'coalition of the willing', Mr. Bigley was tortured for weeks by having his very existence turned into a 'tease'.

Mr Steyn almost outdoes me for cynicism in this column about how the British people, press and government reacted to Mr, Bigley's fate. Had he been murdered at the same time as his American co-workers, it would have saved the British people much embarrassing one-upmanship.

Read the column. The disgust comes through as an almost visceral thing.