You draw a parallel with the role Bolkestein played in the Netherlands in shifting the public debate on the multicultural society. As I explained, this was from the early nineties until Bolkestein became a EU Commissioner in 1999. It is that time period you want to consider. The parallel becomes patently bunk if Bolkestein is retrospectively charged with everything he said in public since that time.

Not necessarily. If he has a subsequent history of making blatant and easily debunked bad-faith arguments and flat out lies, then it casts some doubt on the honestly and propriety of his previous conduct (which, being further removed in time, is harder to verify). Of course, it could be a case of him being a one-trick pony who used to have a point but felt that he had to crank his shtick up to eleven when everybody else started agreeing with him. But the alternate hypothesis, that he always was a dishonest crank, is at least as plausible.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.