Am I Right, Or Am I Right?

Funny, that line works a lot better when Michael Gambon says it. (Note to any West End [of London] theatre goers out there: I saw him once as 'Uncle Vanya' on Shaftesbury Avenue, accompanied by Jonathan Pryce and Greta Scacchi - and he was bloody good. Note to younger readers: the title of this piece was the catchphrase of 'The Singing Detective' a notorious series made by the Red BBC from a script by sometime Labour candidate Dennis Potter. And then the star appears a few years later before liberal bruschetta chompers in a play by a Russian. I mean, just join the dots, huh?)

One of our many anonymous commenters (hey guys, please choose names; they don't have to be your real names or even names you use on other blogs, but let us tell you apart - please) on the previous post pointed to Back Tomorrow:

Now, I've frequently expressed concern for Iraqi people, but now I see the error of my ways. Why wasn't I worrying about Iraqi democrats?

Or, as Nick says:

If you still doubt me, think back to the arguments you heard at every liberal dinner party you've been to in the past four years and ask yourself if concern for Iraqi democrats ever featured in the conversation.
Done it?
I'm right, aren't I?

If we're splitting hairs, I could describe myself as being a Presbyterian atheist: I think I smell a whiff of the 'damned and the saved' here. 'Iraqi democrats' matter; other Iraqis can go to hell - the mullah-supporting, Saddam-defending dogs! I'm sorry to return to this so often, but I really want to reclaim Orwell ('Mr Decency Pants himself' as I believe one other blogger named him) for the 'indecent' side. Orwell wrote a fantastic essay Politics and the English Language. I know you've read it. I want you to read it again. Now what the hell is an 'Iraqi Democrat'? The term seems to have at least two lives. It could mean some kind of politician, one of the greasers who permanently campaigns, who makes promises and writes blank cheques, or it could mean anyone who goes to the polls on a certain day. It lacks a certain, how-do-you-say, concreteness. Being an Iraqi Democrat is undoubtedly a good thing but beyond that what is it?
Nick seems to have taken two positive (or doubleplusgood) words ('Iraqi' and 'Democrat') and made a compound noun of them. It just doesn't appear to actually signify anything. Nick can think it can means one thing; Norman Geras can use it to mean someone else. Christopher Hitchens can bend it to mean a Jordanian criminal. (Oh gosh, did I say 'signify'? That must mean I'm one of these postmodernists Nick and Francis Wheen hate so much; doesn't Derrida talk about 'signifiers' and stuff all the time - and wasn't he a Nazi as well as having an unfair amount of natural head hair in old age? Funny, I was thinking that George Orwell was somewhat influenced by the so-called 'picture-word' theory of the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. Not an Oxford chap though; possibly unsound. And didn't he hang out with Russell who later joined CND - bete noir of Oliver Kamm? Bad egg all round.)