You start thinking you can’t be surprised anymore—not when it comes to left-wing opinion-makers, at least—but you end up being surprised nonetheless. Most of their reactions are predictable in broad outline; but reality has a way of going one better, or one worse.

Two days after the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, BBC television broadcast that week’s edition of the current affairs program “Question Time,” a panel discussion with questions and comments from the floor. Almost at once it became clear that the audience contained a large contingent of Muslim extremists and left-wing sympathizers, who proceeded to hijack the program. Instead of questions, there were anti-American diatribes; members of the panel (who included a former American ambassador to Britain) were shouted down.

While what happened wasn’t entirely inconsistent with the slant of recent BBC coverage in general, and its bias against Israel in particular, it is far more likely to have been the result of ineptitude. No one had bothered to check up on the audience. But that didn’t make the incident any less ugly, and there were many protests.

For a day or two the BBC huffed and puffed. Then the Director General, Greg Dyke (of whom more later), issued an apology. It was fairly half-hearted, and one suspects it might not have been issued at all if offence hadn’t been given at an ambassadorial level. Still, it was better than nothing.

Two days later, a headline in the London