Yesterday John noted an example of TIME magazine’s woeful Middle East reporting. Another example can be found in the regular output of their Beirut-based scribbler, Andrew Lee Butters.

You want to see stupid moral equivalence from one of the worst American journalists in Lebanon? Catch the last few sentences of this Butters dispatch, in which he celebrates the low turnout of March 14 supporters to a rain-soaked rally marking the third anniversary of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination:

The reality is that Lebanon is run by politicians that only really reach out to the people when they need warm bodies to fill central Beirut. But by repeatedly calling people to the street, Lebanon’s politicians risk giving the street a life of its own. Each of these rallies heightens tensions that could spiral into sectarian violence.

Get it? By peacefully protesting the assassination of their leaders and demanding liberation from the Syrian murder machine, the March 14 bloc is provoking violence and civil war in Lebanon–just like Hezbollah. What a jerk.