Because I seem to be missing the point of this brilliant piece of irony. Is it the Today programme’s last ditch effort to give the Mail editor an aneurysm; an article designed to achieve the Beeb’s aim of balance over time, and I just missed the Mark Steyn piece preceding it; or could it be just what it seems* – a lament that the left has failed to reach the Republican base and the fat, stupid, gun-totting, God-bothering idiots whose reflexive belief system “has every thinking person here in the US, except perhaps John McCain and Sarah Palin, worried”.
* For a clearer summary of Bageant’s argument, try this. Oh, and thanks to Andrew Ian Dodge in the comments for alerting me to the BBC piece.