Washington think tank the Council for Hemispheric Affairs has been both lionised and shredded for its analysis of Bermuda's Independence debate.

The analysis, which came out in January, has been seen as either a clear-sighted look at the issues from the outside or as a naive and uninformed screed written by an intern barely put of diapers. Another point of criticism was that the writer had never been to Bermuda and drew most of his information from press reports.

Predictably, praise or criticism depended entirely on what side of the Independence divide the critics were sitting; opponents of Independence liked it, supporters hated it. That's not surprising since the analysis was critical of Premier Alex Scott's drive to re-open the debate. Had the analysis backed Independence, the opinions would no doubt have been reversed.

Still, as a result of the criticism, the Centre's director, Larry Birns, agreed to look at the question again.

He, along with a different research associate, has now done so. The new analysis was released yesterday.

It is, unquestionably, a more balanced analysis and gives greater weight to views of Independence advocates than its predeceessors.

Nonetheless, the conclusion is much the same: The Premier is risking what little popularity he has left on an issue that has little support in the community.

At the time the analysis was written, an editorial in this newspaper said there was value in having outsiders look at issues of local concern. In some ways, they can be more objective than those who are on the frontlines of the debate and can bring a fresh eye to the issues. The risk, of course, is that they may be unaware of the history and nuances of a particular question.

The new analysis can be faulted to some extent on the latter point: for example, it does, to some degree, misunderstand the Opposition United Bermuda Party's position on Independence. It assumes the UBP is wholeheartedly opposed to Independence. That may be true for the bulk of its supporters, but its leadership was and is divided on the issue.

But it is still fair to say that outsiders can sometimes see issues more clearly than we can.

To that extent, the analysis is valuable. It is a fact that people in Bermuda are, at best, deeply uninterested in Independence, and the analysis is right, in this newspaper's view, that the Premier is using up political capital he can ill afford to lose on a quixotic crusade.

It is also right in trashing Mr. Scott's spin that Mr. Rammell's recent statement that the UK government favours referenda for deciding Independence as an endorsement for the formation of the Bermuda Independence Commission.

The point there is that Mr. Scott is well known in Bermuda for spin; when an outsider detects it as well, then clearly Mr. Scott's approach is not working.

So how much weight should be given to the COHA's opinion? In the end, Bermudians alone will make this decision having weighed up all of the pros and cons. But if one argument for Independence is that it will increase Bermuda's stature on the world stage, then that necessarily requires a measurement of how others perceive Bermuda.

The answer, at least from COHA, is to the extent anyone thinks about Bermuda at all, they cannot understand why we would want to take this step at all.