Culture, we should have learned by now, is the first refuge of vulgar propagandists a world over. In this sense, the counteroffensive launched by a veritable army of sycophants, useful idiots, third-rate academics, and serial Kool-Aid drinkers in the Thai media – brain-dead buffoons like Thanong Khanthong, Vasit Dejkunchorn, and Surakiart Sathirathai – in the face of the increased scrutiny Thai politics has received in the foreign press was entirely predictable. Save for the fact that these writers have taken to new heights the laziness, intellectual dishonesty, and crass …