VIK'S BICHON:

Orbán has been working for years on a policy of "Eastern Opening" that seeks to expand Hungary's economic relationship with countries like China and Russia while diminishing its dependence on Western Europe. Moreover, Orbán is locked in a conflict with the EU over its rule of law mechanism. As a consequence, the EU is withholding billions of euros in subsidies from Hungary. Should the EU stick to its hard line, or stiffen more, the economic arguments in favor of Hungary's EU membership will correspondingly weaken.

Orbán has a history of making careless remarks, and any reporter who knew his beat would have immediately grasped the explosive nature of what Orbán had said. But on this occasion, Orbán was speaking to a small group of admiring publicists who should have known better than to make his words public--except that Rod Dreher, whose reference points are all American, was tone deaf to the way Orbán's comments would sound in Europe, and published them on his blog.

It is perhaps worth noting here one passage in Dreher's post that may at first seem minor but is in fact deeply revealing. Describing the evening bull session with the prime minister, Dreher writes:

Orban was so candid that I asked an aide several times if this was really on the record. Only two or three times did he go off the record, and those were only to offer brief judgments on certain public figures.

By his own admission, Dreher did something that any self-respecting journalist from any mainstream American outlet would be loath to do: He gave his subject (via his subject's aide) repeated opportunities to take newsworthy remarks off the record. This throwaway line in Dreher's post reveals a great deal about how he sees himself vis-à-vis Orbán: not as an independent-minded writer who brings a critical eye to his subject, but as something more like an admiring stenographer.

Dreher may call Hungary's opposition press "jackals"--but he looks rather like a sweet lapdog himself.

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