Posted on 08/17/2005 8:16:59 AM PDT by Constitution Day
happy warrior
MARK STEYN
The Left’s Extras
For a myopic media, everything’s about Bush.
What would you say the most famous African country in America was right now? I’d go for Niger. Nary a day goes by without a dozen e-mails from aggrieved lefties claiming that I’ve “lied” about what Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV found on his famous mission when he flew into Niamey and spent a couple of days sipping mint tea with former big shots from the regime of retired strongman Major Wanke. (I’ve suggested “Wankegate” as a name for the “scandal” to the New York Times, but they’re oddly unenthusiastic.)
I take great umbrage at the lie that I’ve lied about Joe Wilson’s lies about what he found in Niger when he lied about the administration’s lying about what he found before he started lying about it — or I would take great umbrage, if I could keep a straight face. Unfortunately, every time I do I think of the touching dedication of Ambassador Wilson’s hilariously titled memoir The Politics of Truth: “To my wife Valerie . . . If I could give you back your anonymity I would do so in a minute.”
I think we can all agree on that. If I could give Joe and Val back their anonymity I would do so in a New York nanosecond. But if the UnableToMoveOn.org crowd want to keep Joe on the front pages, good luck to them and we’ll see how that works out in early November 2006. But you’d think, if he’s accomplished nothing else since he elbowed his way into the spotlight, he’d at least put Niger on the map. As the subject-headers in my inbox shrieked for three successive summers: “BUSH LIED ABOUT NIGER!!!” Leave aside the fact that Major Wanke’s prime minister told Wilson that, yes, the Iraqis were interested in acquiring uranium from Niger — since when did Niger get to be such a big deal? Niger, Niger, Niger. Forget the British, the Aussies, even French intelligence: Only the views of those Niamey tea-sippers should have been allowed to determine whether we went to war with Iraq. To listen to the Left, you’d think Niger was the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
Here’s the thing: There is an actual news story in Niger right now. Not the two-year controversy over Joe Wilson’s tea expenses, but rather a massive drought followed by a plague of locusts and a third of the population on the brink of starving to death. In Vermont the other day, I bumped into a lefty acquaintance who was convinced Karl Rove was about to be brought down for his campaign against the Wilsons for “telling the truth” about Niger. “Ah, Niger,” I said. “Eight hundred thousand dying kids.”
“Really?” he said, nonplussed but only momentarily, and, barely pausing for breath, he was soon speculating wildly about whether Rove’s “lies” would also bring down Rice and Cheney. To the Left, Niger is what Alfred Hitchcock used to call “the MacGuffin”: the thing — the secret papers, the formula — that kick-starts the plot and gets Cary Grant on the run but that no one really cares about. If Niger has Karl Rove on the run, that’s all well and good, but it’s served its purpose.
I’ve remarked previously on the parochialism of the new Left, but, for all the talk of “reaching out” to America’s allies, you get the feeling the foreign pages are one big yawnsville to them. In the old days on Broadway, they used to have what they called “catalogue songs” — laundry lists of lyrical examples that all went to prove the same point, that “You’re the Top” or that “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You).” In this case, whatever happens around the world, These Geopolitical Things Remind Me of Bush. Great events are taking place around the globe, and the Left has no interest in them except as twists in a dreary soap opera of neocon Beltway bogeymen most Americans have never even heard of. The hapless citizenry of Niger — or Iraq or Afghanistan — fulfills the same function as the natives in a British Empire yarn or the Injuns in an old western: They’re mere extras filling out the background in a story about competing factions of A-list white guys.
Take, for example, this New York Times editorial, in which disparate events on three continents are assumed to be mere local franchises of the Plame wars: “As the New York Times reporter Judith Miller enters her fifth week in jail for refusing to disclose a source, the repercussions are being felt abroad . . . In Burundi, government authorities jailed the journalist Etienne Ndikuriyo — for a story questioning the health of the president . . . In Nepal, a police inspector demanded that one newspaper editor reveal his sources for a report on fighting between the government and Maoist rebels . . . And in Serbia and Montenegro, two police officers visited an independent daily newspaper demanding . . .”
Whoa, hold up a moment. This guy in Burundi, he’s a “repercussion” of the Judith Miller case? Like Burundi was a beacon of press freedom until they got the word from the Bush administration that you can toss journalists in the slammer? Tell it to — to pluck at random — the guys at In-Burundi.net who were beaten up by gendarmes in Bujumbura three years ago. I know “all politics is local,” but if you think Etienne Ndikuriyo’s arrest in Burundi is a “repercussion” of Judy Miller, man, you’re getting way too local.
bttt
"Perched on their little manure piles of self-regard, they demand that all the world be props in their personal movie."
I got to see this on display some months ago. We had an Afghan man at work (The area is home to a very large Afghan population) who tendered his resignation in order to go home and help take care of his family remaining in Kabul. Almost to a person we wished him well and took up a small collection for him to take home to help folks over there. Of course, the loud-mouthed leftist (every office has at least one of these, right) A) refused to give because it would be supporting Bush's war, and B) could not understand why the man was grateful to American soldiers and felt compelled to contribute to the rebuilding of his own country.
Props indeed.
That is all that national politics is all about. Who it is from Harvard, Yale or Princeton, (HP) that is going to be president and bring in their fellow HYPie lackeys on their coattails. It matters not if their Democrat or Republican, they are still just Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Once in a while a Ronald Reagan comes along and shakes the old game up, but it soon returns to normal once the HYPies regroup, both left and right, to retake the White House.
Meanwhile, the HYPies that couldn't cut national mustard are put in charge of the state houses. These people are not fit to teach simple math at a community college, but they run California, Massachusetts and a lot in between.
All Joe Wilson is miffed about is that someone found out his "term paper" on Niger was cribbed and that his girlfriend kissed George Bush on the Quad. That's all. (yawn)
Well said. The Left always seem to unwrap their issues from one of their soiled diapers.
Thanks.
Steyn!
Thank you for such an articulate, profound, even Steynian post with the above punch line! It made me proud to be a FReeper when I read this (/intellectual groupie gushing)! We really DO have all the bright minds on our side!
Thanks, as always, for the wonderful ping, Pokey!
The fact that the Left gave up on Plame and Wilson just to jump on the Shaheen bandwagon shows that they knew it was nothing.
I thought it was supposed to be Private Parts and Major Woody.
Thanks for the ping. Wonderful Steyn, as usual...
Funny. I work for a newspaper and don't remember anybody mentioning that. It must not really be happening.
The left loves humanity, it's people they hate.
Yeah Mark Steyn is the best, He has a uncanny way of cutting through the spin and hoopla with little nuggets of truth and humor.
BTTT
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