The American linguist Noam Chomsky, a prominent source of intellectual inspiration for President Hugo Chávez, made a new appeal on Wednesday for the release of María Lourdes Afiuni, a judge arrested two years ago by the secret intelligence police.

If you find it a little surprising that Chomsky's views on international affairs would be reported in the Paper of Record, and if you'd be inclined to believe the Times finds his views newsworthy only because Chomsky is criticizing Chavez (which they've done before)... well, you might  not be the only one. Here's what Chomsky said about it to the Guardian:

Despite his appeal for Afiuni's release, Chomsky has been critical of the media's coverage of the case. On Wednesday he suggested the case had received so much media attention only "because Venezuela is an official enemy" [of the United States]. "I am involved in these appeals all the time but I get no calls unless it is an enemy of the US," Chomsky said. "This is more a comment on the media than on the case."

A third believe the U.S. is no better than Al-Qaeda, according to a New York magazine survey.

How would someone "survey" a leaderless, ever-shifting mass of protesters? I am not sure, and it's not really what New York did. They asked a series of questions--some of them obviously cheeky--to 100 activists at Liberty Plaza. As you can see:

Rank yourself on the following Scale of Liberalism:

Not liberal at all: 6

Liberal but fairly mainstream (i.e., Barack Obama): 3

Strongly liberal (i.e., Paul Krugman): 12

Fed up with Democrats, believe country needs overhaul (i.e., Ralph Nader): 41

Convinced the U.S. government is no better than, say, Al-Qaeda (i.e., Noam Chomsky): 34

It's not surprising that activists at Occupy Wall Street say they identify more with Chomsky than with Obama, regardless of whether you put a description that doesn't reflect Chomsky's worldview next to his name. It's hard to believe that the magazine took this very seriously anyway. But it does provided Brooks with useful anti-protester fodder for his column defending the top 1 percent.

All American presidents have supported and should support the spread of democracy. The real question is: Should that support involve active measures to topple undemocratic regimes, especially military force?

Since this is an important part of his argument, it is worth noting that "all American presidents" have no such passion for the spread of democracy. There is a fairly rich history of U.S. foreign policy taking "active measures" to support undemocratic regimes. It is unclear why Zakaria's  "real question" should be based around the opposite notion.

Interestingly, Zakaria's rebuttal to the idea that the White House should have  "a consistent policy toward the Arab Spring" is at odds with his assurances about U.S. support for democracy. Zakaria points out that the U.S. has not stood very strongly on the side of democratic stirrings in many of the countries under discussion,  chalking it up to the usual difference between U.S. "interests" and "values" in places like Saudi Arabia, where the former are far more important than the latter.

There is, of course, a consistency in U.S. policy-- it involves standing by dictators who are aligned with U.S. interests, and moving against those who do not, especially when there is oil involved.

Which is another way of saying that it's a good week to have Noam Chomsky on CounterSpin. Listen here.

Of some of the Arab countries under examination--U.S.-friendly regimes without substantial oil reserves--Chomsky said:

There is a game plan which is employed routinely,  so commonly it takes virtual genius not to perceive it.... When there's a favored dictator, and he's getting into trouble, support him as long as possible--full support, as long as possible. When it becomes impossible to support him--say, maybe the army turns against him, the business class turns against him-- then send him off somewhere, issue ringing declarations about your love of democracy, and then try to restore the old regime.

In an Op-Ed article in the New York Times on Tuesday that analysts interpreted as the diplomatic equivalent of a declaration of war on the status quo, Mr. Abbas said flatly that he would request international recognition of the state of Palestine, based on the borders of Israel before the 1967 Arab/Israeli war.

Such a move would most likely get a lopsided majority of votes in the General Assembly, diplomats said, with Latin American, African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries all expected to vote in favor of it.

Unnamed "analysts" believe Abbas is declaring war on the "status quo"-- though the resolution he is suggesting would be endorsed in a lopsided U.N. vote. So the "status quo" is really a massively unpopular policy forced on the world. Which would seem to be much closer to the truth--and which apparently cannot be described as such.

At FAIR's 25th anniversary, Noam Chomsky tried to imagine a future where the New York Times, in a remarkable change, described this debate accurately.  In his hypothetical example, the "peace process" is being led by a truly neutral state, and the debate is understood as the view of the world's majority on one side, and the U.S.-backed minority view on the other. We're still a long way from that.