The dreary spires

Many theories have been floated over the years about what it is that makes the Northern Ireland conflict so intractable. But perhaps one theory that deserves some consideration is the view that it's simply something about being there that makes people disagree with each other. Exhibit A for such a theory would surely be Wednesday's New York Times story on the relationship between Condi Rice and Dubya. Much of the article is a description of the perpetual love-in between the two (hopefully not literally), but it does describe one case where there was Trouble in Paradise, where things got pretty bad:

[Row about whether to describe the UN as "vital" in a news conference] The president used the word anyway — not once, but nine times. Afterward, the senior administration official said, Ms. Rice was "fussing about it a bit because she was afraid she might have some explaining to do back here in order to cover all of our various constituencies. And after a while, the president got annoyed about it."

The president, the official said, then cut off Ms. Rice, curtly telling her, the official recounted, "I did it, and that's it." The two nearly made a scene, the official said. "They almost had to go off for a minute to sort it out," the official recounted. "And then it blew over."

And where did this rare contretemps between the neocon paramours happen?

In Northern Ireland this past April