As Libertas’ “Dirty Harry” writes, Variety’s Peter Bart finally comes clean; in 2005, Bart told Cathy Seipp:

“I started out as a quiet conservative and still am,” said Bart. “I never flip-flopped like my friend Burt [Prelutsky]. I very proudly 40 years ago voted for Barry Goldwater. But those of us who voted for Goldwater and Reagan should be embarrassed by the Taliban conservatives who’ve taken over the party.”

But in his latest Variety column, Bart is rather approving of one of the Taliban’s former allies:

The efforts of the Bush administration to “sell” democracy around the world have underscored the fact that our form of government is like a hothouse plant — one that thrives only under rarified conditions.The president wags his finger at Vladimir Putin but — let’s get real — Putin understands how to run Russia just like Marshal Tito understood Yugoslavia and, yes, Saddam kept Iraq glued together. So here’s one more vote for solid, homespun totalitarianism.

He’s right–one should be embarrassed that he wrote something like that.

Although, to be fair, at least Bart remembered Saddam’s name. Walter Cronkite’s sense of amnesia this week brings this post-2003 media trend to its inevitable conclusion.