According to a report in the London Telegraph (via Conservative Grapevine), a former Special Branch policeman who helped guard Salman Rushdie says in his newly published autobiograpy that the author is such a jerk that his guards once locked him in a cupboard so they could spend a night out in a pub.
If there’s a lesson here, I fail to discern it. Other than that people are extremely complex organisms.
People who are obnoxious are likely to think it would be a good idea to annoy somebody evil and powerful. This makes them targets and therefore makes them appear heroic.
Salman Rushdie annoyed the Mullahs. That is a good thing. But he annoyed them in a way that did not make them any weaker – I suspect he’s less of a hero than Pvt. Joe in Iraq.