it was because thinking the Dalai Lama is a wonderful man seems to be something well meaning liberal Hollywood celebrities fall for more than anyone else, a sort of easy-to-feel-sorry-for cause like baby seals or something. He’s another one of those figures where if Christopher Hitchens weren’t around to write a big put down essay furiously explaining to you why the whole thing is horse shit, you’d never bother to look up the truth on your own, so the perception that he’s saintly survives.

Of course, $cientology still survives because of money and lawyers, which isn’t really why the Dalai Lama survives.