Whose Street?

I mostly agree with this Christopher Hitchens column; its main point is that attempts by both pro- and anti-warriors to claim to know Arab public opinion or to treat it as monolithic are boneheaded and probably racist. True enough.

That said, a couple bones to pick:

1) Shouldn't Hitchens have gone ahead and done a Lexis search of usages of the term "Arab street"? I mean, if he wishes to pivot off of the contention that no one talks about the "Arab street" anymore, wouldn't it have been helpful to corroborate that? Doesn't Slate have a research assistant who could have done it for him?

2) Having been reading and listening to Hitch for some time now, it seems to me that he's been putting way too much emphasis on this single term for a while. That is to say, aside from Chris Matthews (and of course, Hitchens, who only uses it to put down its use), I haven't heard any prominent figure referring to the "Arab street" in a long time. This, again, is something Lexis could have resolved.