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Mugabe is in Rome. Anne Applebaum says it illustrates the uselessness of the U. N. and the E. U.
With an unerring sense of timing, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe arrived in Rome last week, thereby demonstrating the profound limitations of international diplomacy. Indeed, it’s hard to think of any other single gesture that would so effectively reveal the ineffectiveness of international institutions in the conduct of human rights and food aid policy. Even someone standing atop the dome of St. Peter’s, megaphone in hand, shouting, “The U.N. is useless! The E.U. is useless!” couldn’t have clarified the matter more plainly.
For Mugabe is in Rome at the invitation of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, which is holding a conference on the international food crisis. He is also in Rome despite the fact that he has been formally forbidden from traveling to Europe by the European Union, which considers him persona non grata: For the past several years, he has beaten and murdered his political opponents in Zimbabwe so blatantly that even the Europeans noticed.
Nevertheless, it seems that the Italians can’t prevent Mugabe from being there this week. Since the summit is a U.N. event, U.N. rules take precedence over European or Italian border rules. This is not the first time Mugabe has taken advantage of this little loophole, either: He attended a U.N. food conference in Rome in 2002, during which he stayed at a five-star hotel on the Via Veneto, sent his wife out shopping and bragged about how his “land reform” program — i.e., the wholesale theft of land from white Zimbabwean farmers and its redistribution among political supporters — was going to enrich his nation’s food supply.
It hasn’t. According to Oxfam, 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s population now lives on less than $1 a day, thanks to Mugabe’s policies, and lacks access to basic foods and clean water. Inflation is at 100,000 percent, this year’s harvest was poor, and Zimbabweans are fleeing their country in large numbers. …
Editors of Las Vegas Review-Journal note Obama’s words and thoughts.
Around this time in the presidential election cycle, Democratic candidates traditionally start “running to the center.”
With a wink and a nod to their core, far-left constituencies, the candidates in effect say, “For the next five months I’m going to sound like a small-government Republican, talking about tax cuts and free enterprise and a strong defense and cutting back the welfare rolls. But don’t worry, this is just to have a calming effect on all those oxen we’re going to get back to collectively goring next year.”
The rhetoric then shifts to the right — until the day after the election, of course.
We hope our congratulations are not premature, but it’s worthy of note that, so far, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama does not seem to be taking this path. If Sen. Obama is elected president, it will not be because he has disguised the fact that he is a dyed-in-the-wool collectivist. …
Kimberley Strassel sums up what we know about Obama.
Barack Obama has finally secured the Democratic Party’s nomination. The question now for voters, and for Republican John McCain, is what have we learned over the past 16 months?
We’ve learned Mr. Obama is a gifted politician, with a knack for reading the public mood. His success came from tapping in, early, to the country’s deep dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and orienting his campaign around a “change” message. Other presidential aspirants – Republican and Democrat – ultimately adopted a version of this tune. But they couldn’t match what was by then a well-rehearsed Obama number.
To GOP strategists’ frustration, focus groups still show that many people don’t know what Mr. Obama proposes policy-wise – and don’t care. They are drawn to his promise to move past political business as usual. John “My Friends” McCain won’t be able to match his rival’s verbal mojo. He’s instead going to have to counter with a compelling theme of his own. First, he’ll have to find one.
We’ve learned Mr. Obama’s political skills include an ability to adapt. When the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright broke, Mr. Obama hemmed and hawed and guaranteed a long discussion. Last week, when another controversy burbled over another spiritual mentor, Father Michael Pfleger, the Democrat quickly condemned the priest, and for good measure quit his Chicago church. …
Jennifer Rubin wonders if Big Brown’s Belmont loss is a metaphor for this year’s election.
David Warren attempts to explain the growing acceptance of globalony and the rise of Obama.
… The trend towards “global crazing” was not always there, however. If we go back half a century, differences between Liberals and Conservatives up here, as between Democrats and Republicans down there, did not hinge on “ability to discern reality.” On the facts of life; on moral, legal, and religious principles; on the need to keep government out of our lives and resist tyranny in any other form, there was broad agreement. A “very liberal” voter from the 1950s would pass for a “right-wing dinosaur” today.
This has become a signal threat to democracy. For where we once had broad agreement on facts, and relatively mild disagreements on what should be done about them, we now have one-half of the electorate drifting off into Cloud Cuckooland.
I have attributed this to many things, but chiefly to the effects of mass urbanization. People living in vast conurbations become disconnected from nature, and thus increasingly suggestible. The press of crowds enforces conformity, so that we get “school of fish” movements in public opinion. The individual fish believes that the direction of the school has been determined by “experts,” and anyway fears being eaten if he deviates from the consensus in any way.
And then you realize that the “experts” are people like Al Gore, and it is too late to panic. …
American.com reviews a book that tries to explain American exceptionalism.
“America is indeed exceptional by any plausible definition of the term and actually has grown increasingly exceptional [over] time.” This is the conclusion of the editors of a new volume, Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation (PublicAffairs, $35). At an American Enterprise Institute conference on April 22, Peter H. Schuck and James Q. Wilson introduced the collection of essays, which is designed to probe Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that America is “exceptional,” or qualitatively different from other countries. The book, which examines 19 different areas, marshals the best and most current social science evidence to examine America’s unique institutions, culture, and public policies.
During his introductory remarks, AEI president Christopher DeMuth said that no effort to understand the meaning of American exceptionalism had been “more ambitious and far-reaching” than this book. Not only does it describe the ways—both good and bad—in which Americans differ from people in other nations, DeMuth said, it also considers whether American exceptionalism is likely to continue, and how it matters to the world. DeMuth noted that Americans are more individualistic, self-reliant, anti-state, and pro-immigration than people in many other countries. They work harder, are more philanthropic, and participate more in civic activities. …
Samizdata with another reason to cancel your Economist.
City Journal reviews Sean Wilentz’s Reagan bio.
Nearly 20 years since he left the White House, Ronald Reagan has begun taking his place in the small gallery of most consequential presidents. Though his admirers accorded him a prominent spot long ago, the story of recent years has been the gradual recognition of Reagan’s achievements among more liberal-minded scholars. John Patrick Diggins’s 2006 book, Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History, ranked Reagan among America’s three greatest presidents, with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Now comes Sean Wilentz’s The Age of Reagan, and Wilentz’s judgment is only slightly less sweeping: “In American political history,” he writes, “there have been a few leading figures, most of them presidents, who for better or worse have put their political stamp indelibly on their time. They include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt—and Ronald Reagan.”
Those words are especially significant because Wilentz is not only a respected historian—albeit of the Age of Jackson—but also a committed political liberal, a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton’s who testified as an expert witness before the House Judiciary Committee against the impeachment of her husband. He also penned a freewheeling article about George W. Bush in Rolling Stone a few years back, titled “The Worst President in History?”—one of those rhetorical questions that supplies its own answer. …
According to Country Store, the UN is suggesting we can help save the world by using wind-up alarm clocks.
Thursday is Carbon Belch Day. Go to the site and sign the pledge.
On June 12, we’re calling on people around the globe to do their part to save the planet by unleashing a healthy Carbon Belch.
There’s so much you can do to increase your carbon footprint on Carbon Belch Day — mow your lawn, go for a drive, gather neighbors for a barbecue (calculate your carbon belch here). In fact, there’s something for everyone. It’s never been so easy to do your part. …