Flashman and the Moonbat

I'm well away into George MacDonald Fraser's latest (well, from 2005), Flashman on the March, which relays the adventures of Sir Harry Paget Flashman, V.C., K.C.B., etc., etc. (aka Flash Harry) with Mad King Theodore and other interesting folk during the Abyssinian Campaign of 1868.

Rollicking good fun, as usual, but I can't help but be a bit saddened by GMF's apparent need to make a political dig in his introduction:

For Flashman's story is about a British army sent out in a good and honest cause by a government who knew what honour meant. It was not sent without initial follies and hesitations in high places, or until every hope of a peaceful issue was gone. It went with the fear of disaster hanging over it, but with the British public in no doubt that it was right. It served no politician's vanity or interest. It went without messianic rhetoric. There were no false excuses, no deceits, no cover-ups or lies, just a decent resolve to do a government's first duty: to protect its people, whatever the cost. To quote Flashman again, those were the days.

Must say, leaves a distinctly nasty taste in one's mouth. Fortunately, GMF confines his bloviating to the introduction and does not allow it to muddle up the story itself.

Of course, the great danger of screeding away while events are still unfolding is that a few years down the road one is in danger of looking like an utter moron. You'd think that having researched history so thoroughly, GMF would remember this.