Wikileaks: The Butler Did It

[Matt Rees]

If I wrote a crime novel filled with the kind of twaddle that passes for breathtaking revelation in this week’s blanket Wikileaks coverage, it’d be panned.

Surprise, surprise. The Saudis want America to do a number on Iran, without taking responsibility for it themselves (and meanwhile Saudis are the big funders of al-Qaeda). Sarkozy shouts at his staff. Ghaddafi probably has sex with his blonde “nurse.” Diplomats sometimes say nice things in public about an international leader when they really think he’s a corrupt psychopath.

It isn’t the stuff of crime fiction and thrillers. It’s more like the predictable, domestic, gossipy rubbish frequently called literary fiction. Just substitute the “world” for a Midwest university campus, the Saudis for the International Affairs Department, America for the Dean’s Office, and Iran for the Business School, and you’ll see what I mean.

The Wikileaks story is really only a revelation to those who believe that when a leader tells the press that “Talks have been fruitful and productive” he’s saying something good. Anyone with any sense knows that what he really means is “I’m only saying this at all because you journalists are stupid enough to print it. Ask my press secretary to tell you his spin on background and you can pretend that’s true, too. Remember, I told you you’re stupid.”

Read the rest of this post at my blog The Man of Twists and Turns.