"The Ecuadorians have partially cut Assange's access to the Internet – perhaps until after the election. But that will not solve the problem.

"Now the U.K. legal authorities have to decide whether the precedents Assange has set in handling "stolen" property while residing in a diplomatic mission is sufficient reason to rescind temporarily the inviolable status of Ecuador's mission."

In the Bizarro World we live in today, invading the inviolable territory of an embassy is "diplomacy pushing back," as Ambassador Hare puts it. He goes on to burble: "It's time for diplomacy to reassert itself in a world that seems increasingly willing to reject consensus-building in favor of stoking nationalist fervor."

Whatever that means.