You can see these various bits of wisdom decorating the pages of various journals and informing the world that the Jews or the Arabs or the Muslims or the neo-cons are out to get everyone, and that this or that course of action is the only one that will save the world.

What is important about such intellectual detritus is not the actual content, but the "feel" they give us for the mentality of the audience, and the peculiar relation between what a columnist or blogger may write, and the commentary it may get.

There might be a quiet majority out there who read and understand and agree or disagree. There are probably quite a few of our readers who are far better informed than we are. Usually, those who know, don't comment. They just watch the show. Among the commenters there is a great mass, however, that doesn't bother to read what anyone else writes (except perhaps for one or two phrases) and they probably would not understand it anyhow. It is a bit like lecturing about relativity theory in a lunatic asylum. They applaud or protest in inappropriate places. They have their own opinions about the Middle East and everything else, formed by some mysterious process that is unrelated to examination of reality and certainly not shaped by anything that a columnist might write. They will always reach the same conclusions no matter what the article or the facts imply.

Meanwhile, back in the madhouse, our lecturer is explaining the unity of inductive phenomena, whether the coil or the magnet moves. In "response," a man is saying, "They should never have let the Dodgers leave Brooklyn." He always says that. A lady is saying, "It is a shame how they treated my aunt Sadie." She always says that.

Our lecturer is carefully explaining how relativity did away with the ether as a medium for transmission of light. The madman interrupts and says, "There, I told you. They should never have let the Dodgers leave Brooklyn." The lady says, "Aunt Sadie knew about relativity before Einstein. It is a shame how they treated my aunt Sadie." The lecturer explains tensor mathematics, and a man in the audience says tensor math is a plot to bankrupt him. If it were a play by Ionescu or ee cummings or Samuel Beckett, you would say that it is too absurd and pointless to be funny. And you will tell me that I am surely exaggerating.

There is method in the madness though. These unfortunates are only interested in getting their own message across. The questions of non-Euclidean geometry and field theory that might be associated with relativity are of no interest to them. They want to talk about aunt Sadie and the Dodgers.

Not long ago I wrote about US policy toward Israel. The article did not have an "ulterior motive," other than to present facts in evidence. Therefore, I was not interested in offering conclusions.

Two readers' comments stand on that article, out from all the rest as examples of the evolving art of e-commenting, and as explanations of the despair often evoked by such comments in authors and analysts.

A Mr. Barzetta wrote:

Jews start the majority of wars, and they will one day take a step to far - and be annilated (sic)

Barzetta has presumably done a careful study of all the wars in history, and come to the conclusion that the Jews were behind the Napoleonic wars, the US civil war, the Italian invasion of Abbysinia, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course, the Barzettas can explain how the Jews started World War I and World War II. Hitler said so, and he must have been right. Mr Barzetta, who cannot even spell "annihilate," wants to "annilate" me based on his theories. He has one vote like everyone else.

Though we usually delete racist comments if we find them, I left this as an egregious examplar, for the edification of those who insist that anti-Semitism is dead. No matter what I had written or anyone had written, if it had the word "Jew," "Zionist" or "Israel" in it, Barzetta would without a doubt have found reason to insert his astute comment.

It is sobering to reflect that the same sort of Barzettaism is really at the root of "analyses" like those of professors Mearsheimer and Walt. "The Jews control the world." "The Jews start all the wars." Mearsheimer and Walt, and their kind, are more dangerous than Barzetta, because they have software that corrects spelling errors, and have the ear of government officials. They can cloak their thesis about Aunt Sadie or the Dodgers or the Jews with the trappings of intellectual legitimacy and authority.

A comment of a different kind was left by Bill Narvey. I had explained, rather carefully I thought, that the US, the greatest power on earth, was opposed to Israeli territorial gains along with the rest of the world. It would seem to follow from that, that the West Bank settlements are a hopeless project. I would have thought that was obvious. However, Mr. Narvey instead reached the following, utterly astounding conclusion:

Surely Ami Isseroff is ready to call for annexation of the West Bank by Israel as is Moishe Feiglin and Ariyeh Eldad or that Israel should play its own game to not concede one more inch to the Palestinians regardless with the ultimate goal of manipulating circumstances to reach a most propitious time to annex the West Bank when it is most likely to succeed.

"Surely???" The idea had never even entered my mind, and it doesn't follow from anything that I wrote. I have less interest in annexing the West Bank than I might have in bringing the Dodgers back to Brooklyn. The latter is probably not opposed by any national governments, but of course one would have to reckon with Arnold Schwartzenegger. Given the opposition of most of the world, the United States included, annexing the West Bank would be a reckless and meaningless gesture, not to mention the moral aspects and the opposition of the Arabs.

Mr. Narvey, had he been straightforward, would have said "Annex the West Bank is what I always say. And bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn." It is not what I believe. It is what he believes. The art behind such comments is to use someone else's Web site to push your own agenda: Annexing the West Bank, returning Dodgers to Brooklyn, Jews started all the wars, or reminding people about poor old aunt Sadie. Mr. Narvey took this art to new heights, when he tried to make it seem as though it was my idea. At least Barzetta didn't pin his racist thinking on me.

The same sort of "analysis" goes on, unfortunately, at the most rarefied levels of policy making. One suspects that the invasion of Iraq was the result of Narvey-istic or Barzettaistic thinking. Someone in the Bush administration had been saying "invade Iraq" for many years. No matter what was discussed, this person would sum up with (for example) "Thank you for your presentation about tax policy. The facts show we ought to invade Iraq." "Thank you for your presentation about global warming. The facts show we ought to invade Iraq." Like Cato the Elder who wanted to destroy Carthage, and like Barzetta who wants to "annilate" the Jews and Narvey, who wants to annex the West Bank, this person finally found the opportune moment after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. This time, they said "Thank you for your presentation about 9-11 and Islamist extremism. The facts show we ought to invade Iraq." As the issue was at least related to the Middle East, their usual slogan made a bit more sense, and was adopted as policy.

And when the Iraq attack went bad, a different set of "experts" was called in. Those experts say "We have to get Israel to make peace" in response to any question, so that answer, a non-sequitor as irrelevant as all the others, was incorporated in the Iraq Study Group Report.

We have to recognize this sort of pseudo-thought for what it is. It is really too bad about Aunt Sadie and the Dodgers, but they do not explain or solve the problems at hand.

Ami Isseroff