Consider, if you will, the gem-like object that I hold in my hand. I retrieved it, like a tumbling nugget of gold snatched from a shallow but swift-flowing creek, out of the stream of media babble in which, as is my custom, I happened to be wading one day last month. It is a quotation from President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, explaining to the people of that turbulent country his reasons for declaring a state of emergency there on November 3. “This was the most difficult decision I have ever taken,” he was quoted as saying. “I had to take a drastic measure to save the democratic process … I stand by it because I think it was in the nation’s interest.” Briefly I toyed with the notion that these memorable words were a sign that celebrity politics had come even to Pakistan, otherwise known as a seething cauldron of religious, tribal, and other kinds of hatreds where politics and murder are never far apart. But it was pretty clear that the president’s words were intended for an international audience, especially an American one, and were uttered because he understood that, in the celebrity culture the American media have made of our public life, the feelings of our leaders have become more important than anything they actually do. Perhaps, he must have thought, even such “a drastic measure” as his crackdown on opponents could be granted the indulgence that our culture routinely affords to good intentions, fine feelings, and