busker

As if being rude to poor AzaLea wasn't indication enough of my vanishing social graces, I was listening to NPR the other night to what should have been, and probably was, an expert talk on Hezbollah terrorism on these shores.

Almost at once, I found myself consumed with impatience with the milksop performance of one of the interviewees.

Law enforcement expert Tom Diaz and journalist Barbara Newman have just come out with Lightning Out of Lebanon, a timely look at Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil.

Diaz is a top Democratic counsel on counter terrorism, helped write key anti terrorism legislation, and was a consultant to the US Department of Justice on such matters as the use of high technology by terrorists and as law-enforcement investigative tools.

He spoke with authority.

We're told Barbara Newman is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, author of 'The Covenant: Love and Death in Beirut'.

Try as I might to hear some competence in her delivery, she came across as tongue-tied, almost unwilling to speak - as uncertain and unconvincing on her subject as Diaz was in command.