Islam Eats Up Marx, Part 2

Mr. Alex Magno of the Philippine Star eloquently skewers the five parliamentarians who walked out on President George Bush's speech to the joint session of the Philippine Congress. He describes them individually, describing the aspects of their careers in the Communist Party that make them such unattractive characters, including acknowledged participation in bloody purges, toadying to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, cop-shooting and then fleeing at one stage to America for political asylum. But he forgives them these, being Communists, did they not demonstrate the additional and unforgivable crime of discourtesy to a guest.

Mr. Magno should take heart. Twenty years ago, these Leftist worthies would have been the life of the party. But their cachet is slowly fading among the elite, even of Philippine academia, because the faint odor of the passe has attached to them. And nothing is more lethal in the cocktail set of the archipelago than to wear yesterday's fashions. Today's darlings, in case these Communists bravos did not know, are Muslim militants. The paisley shirts, kaftans, denim jackets, bell-bottom trousers and sandals now belong in the museum of antiquities, or to use a less kindly phrase, the "dustbin of history". The apparel du jour are the billowy trousers, matted beard, skull-cap and upturned shoes of the Islamic jihadi, which these aging leftists are too chicken to wear. Or the Kevlar helmet, night vision goggles, desert camouflage utes and Oakley sunglasses of the Men of the West, which they are not worthy to wear.