Last week, at the height of the stingy/generous debate, I argued that each side was making an important point: Broadly speaking, conservatives were right to insist that the US is a relatively generous nation by just about any reasonable international standard, while lefties were equally correct in averring that our official response to the humanitarian crisis in South Asia -- still a little tepid at that point, frankly, but getting better by the day -- had to be viewed, in part at least, as a component of our public diplomacy efforts in the war on terror.
Thanks to the dramatic outpouring of public and private dollars in recent days, the first half of that formulation is now largely uncontroversial. And I'm happy to be able to report this morning that the second half seems to gaining ground as well, as this typically thoughtful (and, in fairness, slightly skeptical) post by James Joyner makes clear.