Mr Burns

I was at the Lowy Institute yesterday (yes, I can tell you're surprised) and listened to a fascinating address by R. Nicholas Burns, who is Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, or to put it more meaningfully, the highest-ranking career diplomat at the US State Department. The content of the talk wasn't tremendously exciting, but it was delivered beautifully. And when it came to question time at the end he was superb - it's that same thing you get when you watch Federer playing tennis, it's just a joy to see someone do something - anything - that well. I was trying to work out what sort of suit he had on; he had that veneer that successful americans (especially new englanders) effortlessly adopt, and it occurred to me that if there were an Australian equivalent to him it'd be a guy with too-big ears and a bad haircut.

The one fun bit - and it caused me and my companion to shoot each other a raised eyebrow - was when he started to say 'the war on terror' but only got as far as 'war', then hesitated and backtracked, calling it instead 'the struggle against terrorism'. I like this a lot more; calling it a war just legitimises the creep of executive power.