Posted on 09/27/2005 6:24:55 AM PDT by YoungKentuckyConservative
Response to "Bush should support genocide pact" by Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, 9-26-2005
by Dennis Fishel
If anyone ever asks me to run for president, I'm not going to know whether to laugh or cry. Not that I have much to worry about, you understand; retired mailmen-turned-novelists aren't normally on the candidate short list. Still, given that the media voodoo dolls of George W. Bush look like pin cushions these days, it can't hurt for any of us to have an escape plan should our friends and cohorts unaccountably decide we might look good in Oval.
When the dogs at the New York Times begin tearing at their favorite knotted sock, logic doesn't seem to slow them down a bit. The frenzied killing rituals of the predatory are seldom hampered by anything as inconsequential as analytical thought. Even the loss of subscription revenue doesn't seem to tell them anything when their blood is up - anything like, jeez, it may not have been the current prez who lined the pockets of Louisiana Democrats with the money intended for levee upgrades in New Orleans TWO FLIPPING DECADES AGO!!
Ancient history, they conclude. Dubya should have been there to play Dutch boy and hold back the flood with his own presidential finger - or, perhaps, to at least ask his predecessor if maybe he could convince his friend Monica to blow the damned hurricane back out to sea.
Of course, had George done those things, his efforts would have been deemed opportunism, a chance at a few cheap photo ops.
Ah, but in the media penchant for rolling up their own papers and beating stories into submission, this storyline is rapidly becoming old news. Time to roust out the hounds and go hunting for fresh game.
Nicholas Kristof, one of the Times's Big Dogs, has sniffed the ground and dug up a new reason to castigate George - African genocide. Well actually, it isn't really a "new" reason, since Africans have been knocking each other off in astronomical numbers, and by very gruesome and creative methods, for generations. Does anyone but me remember Hutus and Tutsies?
What I don't seem to remember is any suggestion from the media of that era that the negligence of an American president was somehow responsible for the carnage.
But today's forthright United Nations - and Nick Kristof - see things differently, at least for the Republican present. Who knows, after all, how they'll view African genocide if Hillary should perchance ooze under the White House door? For now, a Republican named Bush is at the wheel and he, it seems, had the gall to turn his back yet again on the latest gonad-less pact by the UN telling the world to just oh-please stop it with this genocide stuff. And just to show us how out of round with reality Mr. Bush is in this matter, Nick pointed out that the United States during more proper times, led by Democrat Harry Truman, fully supported the UN's Genocide Convention of 1948.
Harry Truman? 1948??
Okay, so before the cacophony of growling from a growing pack of knotted sock chewers drowns me out, please allow me to inject here that 1948 was SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO!! Does it occur to Nick or anyone else at the Times that the UN's 1948 effort didn't work, which is why we have African genocide today? Are there sparks at their synopses suggesting that simply signing a flimsy piece of paper at The Hague before jumping into limousines and trundling off to lunch means nothing to Sudanese rebels hell-bent on rape and murder?
Yeah, in fact, there probably are little electo-flashes of intellect to be noted. These old dogs know all the old tricks. You see, how it's supposed to work is that all the well-intentioned nations who hate genocide - unless it's Iraqi genocide - sign their little paper and then stand aside as the United States and our ever-willing ally Great Britain do all the dirty work.
Unless, of course, the dirty work must be done in an arena where the flow of money scammed from a so-called Oil for Food program might be interrupted. Gotta pay for that lunch with something.
Nick's complaints didn't stop there, of course. I mean, did you really think they would? This is, after all, a feeding frenzy, and the snarling isn't easily stopped. It seems that former Marine captain Brian Steidle has been hounded by the State Department to stop publicizing the horrid photos of hacked up victims he took while in Darfur, these images purportedly seen by the feds as damaging to our relationship with Sudan. I wasn't aware that we had much of a relationship with Sudan, but I certainly have little problem with howls of protest over such irresponsible censorship if this charge is accurate. I do, however, wonder what Nick's stance on the showing of films and photos of Americans leaping from the World Trade Center to their fresh-air deaths on 9-11-01 might be. If I recall correctly, the media chose to pan that little episode, and I don't remember any discontented yelping from Nick and his kennelmates over the issue.
Monitoring the behavior of our two woofing quadripeds, Sam and Sally, when it's time to hand out the dog biscuits might give a clue. Concern for the other pooch just doesn't seem to enter the mind of a hound whose internal radar is set on seeking advantage. And so it is in the Times's editorial office. When Bush is gone, perhaps to be replaced by someone more compliant with the ideals of an idealless international organization of wine sippers and clowns, the moldering bones of the next generation of African genocide victims will simply resume disappearing in the jungle overgrowth as before, I fear, with scarcely a whimper from the Times's doggy daycare center.
I'll scan their pages from time to time anyway, searching for at least a small whine of protest so long as someone spreads a little paper around. But logic being the lesson giver it unfailingly is - to some of us, anyway - I'm betting all I see is a metaphorical carpet vacuumed free of the tattered remnants of yesterday's news as a cluster of K-9s slumber, their feet twitching in dreamy remembrance of past projects of unreasoned and glorious revisionistic mayhem.
Den, 1948 was fifty seven years ago. Other than that, decent effort.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Kristof is at the top of the list of liberal journalists. Just seeing his name as the author is enough to tick me off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.