Bloodthirsty Liberal

You can take the communism out of Russia and China—but evidently you can’t take out the communists!

After four years of Dmitry Medvedev keeping the czar’s throne warm, Vladimir Putin is once again Russia’s president. There were no public celebrations to accompany Mr. Putin’s inauguration on May 7. Quite the opposite. Moscow’s streets had been cleared by a huge security presence; the city turned into a ghost town. This scene came the day after massive protests showed that the Russian middle class rejects Mr. Putin’s bid to become their president for life. With no independent legislature or judiciary at our disposal, Mr. Putin’s impeachment will have to take place in the streets.

Meanwhile, this modern czar is using the full power of the state to stamp out Russia’s growing democracy movement. Two young movement leaders, Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov, were arrested on May 6 and are still in jail on 15-day sentences. They’ve been charged with “violently resisting arrest,” even though several videos of the arrest show Mr. Navalny with his hands in the air shouting, “Don’t resist! Don’t resist!”

Naturally, the court has forbidden the admission of any video evidence in the case. It is possible that a criminal case will be added against them for “inciting mass violence”—Kremlin code for a political trial.

A similar case in St. Petersburg has even grimmer overtones of KGB repression. Activists of the Other Russia coalition were recently charged with “extremist activity” based on the testimony of agents and informants all in the employ of the Interior Ministry. Their crime is officially described as organizing “public events focused on inciting hatred toward high leaders of state authority”—just the sort of phrase that sends chills down the spine of anyone born behind the Iron Curtain.

We’ve covered China plenty, so this is Russia’s turn. The writer, Garry Kasparov, is a leading human rights figure in Russia—and a former world chess champion (probably the best player since Bobby Fischer’s insanity overtook his brilliance). He doesn’t like the look of the endgame.

The American reaction to the protests and the Putin regime’s vicious response to them was not long in coming. On May 8, with security forces still clearing the streets and raiding cafes, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an interview with CNN that made the Obama administration’s position frightfully clear. In a phrase that quickly became infamous here, Mrs. Clinton said she hoped “Russia will be able to continue democratizing” during Mr. Putin’s new term.

The 12 years of Putin rule have marked a steady slide away from democracy in every way, so what message was this outrageous statement intended to convey? Are Russians still supposed to act grateful that we no longer live under Brezhnev or Stalin? Or is this the Obama administration’s way of telling Mr. Putin to carry on, that matters of human rights and democracy are safely off the table as long as NATO can use Russian territory for Afghanistan supply lines?

The myth that Russia and the U.S. have a mutually useful strategic partnership has been promoted by the Americans for years, but the fiction is becoming harder to maintain. Mr. Putin abruptly canceled his trip to the G-8 summit at Camp David and will instead make the first foreign excursion of his new term to the unalloyed dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus.

Let me say what Kasparov will not (doubtless out of civility): the Obama administration is a… no, I can’t say it either. I would instead observe that what Putin did was a kick in the ‘nads—but we are ‘nad-less.

And not just Hillary. Let me offer Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 for any, ahem, hard evidence that anyone in this administration has a pair.

PS: I didn’t know that Putin had bailed on the G-8 summit to go to Belarus instead. Has the media covered the story and its implications?

Another Executive Branch power grab

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is allowing U.S. funds to flow to the West Bank and Gaza despite a hold by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., a rare display of executive-branch authority sure to anger the key lawmaker concerned about protecting her congressional oversight role.

A State Department official said that the letter was delivered on Tuesday to key members of Congress informing them of Clinton’s decision to move forward with the $147 million package of the fiscal year 2011 economic support funds for the Palestinian people, despite Ros-Lehtinen’s hold. Administrations generally do not disburse funding over the objections of lawmakers on relevant committees.

“[The funds deliver] critical support to the Palestinian people and those leaders seeking to combat extremism within their society and build a more stable future. Without funding, our programs risk cancellation,” the official, who was not authorized to speak about the issue, said in an e-mail. “Such an occurrence would undermine the progress that has been made in recent years in building Palestinian institutions and improving stability, security, and economic prospects, which benefits Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

I suggest that we suspend elections in the United States. Obama should be “re-elected” by acclimation. The Constitution should be shredded and used for insulation in homes in poor neighborhoods. The concept of checks and balances, respect for the law, and a civil society is dead.

- Aggie

Be it ever so humble:

Listening to Hillary Clinton berate China and Russia for their refusal to condemn Syria’s crackdown on its own people—”It’s just despicable,” she said last week at the anti-Assad “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunis—it’s almost possible to forget that this administration was once eager to get on Bashar’s good side, too.

Not here it ain’t. We quote Madame Secretary every day. And as the sun just rose above the horizon:

“Only a year ago, this country’s government was being vilified as a dangerous pariah,” the New York Times’s Robert Worth reported in March 2009. “Today, Syria seems to be coming in from the cold.” Top administration envoy George Mitchell paid Assad a visit that June, seeking, he said, “to establish a relationship built on mutual respect and mutual interest.”

Then, as the Syrian uprising began a year ago, Mrs. Clinton continued to paint Assad as a “reformer.” It took President Obama more than six months (and 2,000 murdered Syrians) to call for Assad to step down.

Even now, the administration has no plan to get Assad to step aside, other than to call on him to do so. A U.N. resolution on Syria vetoed last month by Russia and China was the usual mush of exhortation and condemnation. Friday’s Tunis meeting ended with a ringing call for, well, nothing: “They still give this man [Assad] a chance to kill us, just as he has already killed thousands of people,” said an opposition fighter in Homs, sizing up what Hillary Clinton’s cheap solicitude means for him and his besieged city.

Compared to this, the position of the Russians is at least intellectually defensible. Say what you will about Moscow’s despotic allies, mercenary interests and autocratic principles, Vladimir Putin has been consistent in sticking up for all three. That’s more than can be said for a U.S. administration that urges democracy, nonviolence and human rights for Syria—and pays nothing but lip service to each.

While calling four-star generals fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq liars.

[T]he administration has come around to the idea that being on the side of democracy is good U.S. policy. But here’s an irony: Just as it has become the conventional wisdom that Mr. Assad’s downfall is the only way to detach Syria from Iran, the administration has adopted a purely rhetorical attitude toward regime change. I have no doubt Mrs. Clinton has come around to loathing Mr. Assad as much as some wild-eyed neocons did a few years ago. But loathing combined with inaction still amounts to the worst form of indifference: the willful kind.

Which brings me back to Mrs. Clinton’s tirade on Friday. There is a good case to be made that we should apply sufficient military pressure on Assad to help tip the scales in favor of the opposition, as we did in Libya. There’s also a plausible case to be made that the last thing the U.S. needs is another military entanglement on behalf of a cause we barely know for the sake of a goal we can only hazily define.

But there is no case for lecturing Russia on its own long-standing record of engaging its faithful clients in Syria, much less for invoking the suffering of a people she has no serious intention of saving. Even chutzpah has its limits, Hillary.

Case in point:

The U.S. has repeatedly said that it is reluctant to support the direct arming of the dissidents. Why?

Clinton: Well, first of all, we really don’t know who it is that would be armed.

Maybe the real reformers? (File under Smart-Ass Power.)

Running the country and the world (not to mention your mouth) ain’t as easy as it looks, is it?

UPDATE
Elliot Abrams is just crushing.

He heard that in the Bush years all the time. The Left would say anything that they wanted to say, and if you questioned it, you were fascist, questioning their patriotism, and, in fact, they were the most patriotic of all because they hated Bush the most.

My what a sprucing up we’ve had since Obama because King of the Hill. Now, dissent is no longer patriotic at all. It is, at best, unhelpful, and at worst, it approaches treason.

Criticism of President Barack Obama’s apology for the burning of Qurans in Afghanistanis not helpful, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday in a wide-ranging interview with CNN.

“I find it somewhat troubling that our politics would enflame such a dangerous situation in Afghanistan,” Clinton said of the complaints by Republican presidential candidates and some experts about Obama’s apology.

Really, Hillary? Were you troubled when your own party went after Bush policies in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Oh, and they’re itching to go to war in Syria… and the Secretary of State position is now just a political hack job:

We have a lot of contacts, as do other countries – a lot of sources within the Syrian government and the business community and minority communities – and our message is the same to all of them: ‘You cannot continue to support this illegitimate regime because it is going to fall,’” she said.

But she said the Syrian National Council was not yet the kind of united opposition movement that toppled Moammar Gadhafi with international help in Libya last year.

The Libyan opposition base in the city of Benghazi gave the international community “an address” to deal with.

“We don’t have that in Syria,” she said. “The Syrian National Council is doing the best it can but obviously it is not yet a united opposition.”

Clinton also defended telling an audience in Tunisia Saturday that Obama would be re-elected.

…

“I was asked whether the comments in the primary campaign, some of which have been quite inflammatory, represented America,” she said, adding that they did not necessarily. “I represent America.”

As America’s top diplomat, Clinton would not normally make political statements to a foreign audience.

“Probably my enthusiasm for the president got a little out of hand,” Clinton said with a laugh.

Ha Ha.

- Aggie

It’s a real pity what’s going on in Syria:

“Widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations” amounting to crimes against humanity in Syria have been conducted with the “apparent knowledge and consent” of the country’s “highest levels,” a U.N. commission said Thursday.

U.N. bodies probing the crimes should identify perpetrators and hold them accountable, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic said, stressing that “urgent, inclusive political dialogue” is needed to end the crisis.

“The government has manifestly failed in its responsibility to protect the population,” the report said. “Anti-government armed groups have also committed abuses, although not comparable in scale and organization with those carried out by the state.”

The commission said it has documented “crimes against humanity and other gross violations.”

It made similar assertions in November, underscoring its belief that policies to mistreat civilians were issued at the “highest levels of the armed forces and government” and that the state is “responsible for wrongful acts, including crimes against humanity, committed by members of its military and security forces.”

November?

Try last March!

Here is a transcript of the March 27 exchange:

10:31AM ET

BOB SCHIEFFER: Madam Secretary, let me start with you. Tens of thousands of people have turned out protesting in Syria which has been under the iron grip of the Assads for so many years now. One of the most repressive regimes in the world, I suppose. And when the demonstrators turned out the regime opened fire and killed a number of civilians. Can we expect the United States to enter that conflict in the way we have entered the conflict in Libya?

HILLARY CLINTON: No. Each of these situations is unique, Bob. Certainly we deplore the violence in Syria. We call, as we have on all of these governments during this period of Arab awakening, as some have called it, to be responding to their people’s needs, not to engage in violence, permit peaceful protests and begin a process of economic and political reform.

…

There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer. What’s been happening there the last few weeks is deeply concerning. But there’s a different between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities than police actions which frankly have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see.

Ah well, who among us hasn’t said something so extraordinarily and criminally stupid? It’s like when I said of the sweaty terrorist, Samir Kuntar, that he just had funny taste in facial hair and gestures of greeting:

I thought he was just saying “Hi mom, check out the ‘stache I grew in prison!” I still blush over that one.

Thank goodness Secretary Clinton said this on CBS News’ Face the Nation. If anyone had actually seen it, she’d never live it down!

Or is it more like a hula hoop or a pet rock?

In any case, it’s all the rage—and I don mean rage!

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton switched from foreign to domestic issues to put down Israel Saturday, expressing worries over “anti-democratic” proposals. Knesset Member Uri Ariel suggests that Secretary of State mind her own business, and two Cabinet ministers said the same, in more patronizing language.

Speaking at the Saban Forum in Washington, Clinton alleged that Israel is showing signs of becoming anti-democratic because of a recent bill proposing limits on foreign funding of local NGOs and for allegedly trying to exclude women from public life in Israel.

Israel is known as the only real democracy in the Middle East, where women and Arabs have full and equal rights and who have risen to the top in politics and business.

This comes only a day or so after Defense Secretary Panetta blamed Israel for stalled negotiations with the Arabs.

But who cares what the Secretaries of State and Defense think, right? I bet Obama couldn’t pick them out of a police line-up. I want to know what the US Ambassador to Belgium thinks about Israel (thanks to reader Jeanette):

[T]he U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman — a top Obama fundraiser in 2008 — told a conference in Brussels this week that Muslim anti-Semitism “stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Pardon us for retaining our belief that Muslim anti-Semitism in the Middle East predates 1967, and even 1948 — and in any case is the fault of the anti-Semites, not of the Jews.

First of all, isn’t that Obama all over. He “rewards” one of his biggest fundraisers with a post to a no-account country like Belgium. What, did the guy not make quota? Actually, I see that Gutman is the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor (there were a few), which only proves that imbecility can strike anyone.

Let’s get his comment whole:

“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly said, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”

So, we’re qualifying Jew-hatred now, is that it? Good vs. bad? Make no mistake (Obama isn’t), this isn’t about borders or settlements, it never was or will be. It is an existential war for survival.

And Obama has chosen his side.

Think I’m overreacting? Clinton, Panetta, Gutman. Sure, the White House distanced itself from Gutman’s hateful remarks, but the dog whistle (as Janeane Garofalo would call it) has been heard, loud and clear. As Aggie as re-demonstrated below, the Occupy Movement—the Left as a whole—is riddled with antisemitism, rank Jew-hate. But they can vote. And short of adding a Hitler mustache to the Shepard Fairey poster, nothing gets their juices flowing more than a good anti-Zionist rant.

Long time readers know that I lose (almost) all my deeply ingrained cynicism when it comes to Aung San Suu Kyi. Her courage and determination may—repeat may—have overpowered one of the most brutal military dictatorships in recent times.

I can only tip my cap:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to improve ties with Burma if current reforms continue.

After meeting Burmese President Thein Sein, Mrs Clinton said the US would reward Burma’s leaders if they kept “moving in the right direction”.

After talks with Mr Thein Sein in the remote capital, Nay Pyi Taw, Mrs Clinton met pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the main city, Rangoon.

The US maintains tight sanctions on senior leaders in Burma’s hierarchy.

But a series of reforms this year has led to speculation that decades of isolation could be about to end.

“The United States is prepared to walk the path of reform with you if you keep moving in the right direction,” Mrs Clinton said.

“These are incremental steps and we are prepared to go further if reforms maintain momentum. In that spirit, we are discussing what it will take to upgrade diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors,” Mrs Clinton told reporters.

“Over time, this could become an important channel to air concerns, monitor and support progress and build trust on both sides,” she said.

But you know how I know I really love this story?

Chinese state media has reacted furiously to Mrs Clinton’s visit to Burma.

The Global Times, which often runs bombastic nationalistic editorials, warned the US not to impinge on China’s interests.

“China has no resistance toward Myanmar [Burma] seeking improved relationship with the West, but it will not accept this while seeing its interests stamped on,” said a comment piece in the paper.

Best news of the day! I have tears in my eyes.

I’m really happy for Chelsea Clinton that she landed the gig of Special Correspondent at NBC News. The though of her living in public housing or bagging six-packs of Old Milwaukee, like Obama’s relatives, depressed me.

Special correspondent… is that like mail room clerk or cub reporter?

[T]he title “special correspondent” puts Clinton in the same category as Ted Koppel and Meredith Vieira on “Rock Center.”

They’re both semi-retired, aren’t they? How can Chelsea be a has-been when she’s a never-was?

Explained Capus: “Given her vast experiences, it’s as though Chelsea has been preparing for this opportunity her entire life.”

And by “preparing for this opportunity her entire life,” Capus meant: “successfully dodging the media her whole life.” Because she is the child of Bill and Hillary Clinton, of course, the press was supposed to keeps its hands off Chelsea as she was growing up, so she could live her life as privately as possible.

I just checked. She’ll be 32 in February. She was a child when Bill was in office, fine, but she has never granted an interview, much less conducted one.

And don’t think the media haven’t noticed:

So let the interviews commence, right? Make Clinton available for interview upon interview, right?

When asked about media interviews, NBC’s Lauren Kapp responded, “Sorry, we’re not putting anyone out on this other than what’s in the press release.”

Oh no, the press release-only treatment! Isn’t that the province of companies that are trying to hide — not promote — something?

On Twitter: @carr2n: “Chelsea Clinton steps out of the shadows, hired by NBC News .?.?. and doesn’t give interview about new gig. http://nyti.ms/u8X0rS #FAIL”

…

After all, you can’t say it’s not relevant — if you’re going to interview other people, it might be helpful to have spent a moment or two on the other side of the mike.

The story of Clinton’s allergy to the media has several distinct phases, each with a distinct Media Avoidance Propriety Rating:

1) Chelsea as a kid living in the White House.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Unimpeachable — let the kid live her life.

2) Chelsea as a young adult working in the business world.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Perfectly fine — she didn’t seek the spotlight.

3) Chelsea as an advocate for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Lame — Chelsea made many appearances for her mother but avoided interviews. Rigorously avoided them, even when the stupidity of doing so should have dawned on her: She stiffed a query from a 9-year-old reporter from Scholastic News.

4) Chelsea as an NBC reporter.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Hypocritical and intolerable: Now Clinton will be asking lots of questions. She just won’t answer any. What a great media world we inhabit.

A popular opinion among journalists:

Journalists have tried and failed for years to interview the famously press-shy Ms. Clinton. And it was no different on Monday, as several journalists pointed out on Twitter:
“
In ’08, Chelsea Clinton (in NH) told me “Sorry, I don’t talk to the media.” I said, “But you are all grown up now.” Now she IS the media.
Glenn Thrush

Will Chelsea talk to media now that she IS the media? Disdained reporters in ’08. Chelsea Clinton Hired by NBC News: nyti.ms/tP8nn9
Amy Chozick

The supreme irony of Chelsea Clinton becoming an NBC reporter: I’m pretty sure she’s never granted an interview. nyti.ms/uWs82Q

She does have one fan, though it’s one you might expect:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: … I would remind everybody that there was much kerfuffle about Tim Russert’s resume. Oh, my goodness, he worked for a couple elected Democrats. And what that nicely left out was Tim Russert’s talent and intellect and ability to call them down the middle. What is he remembered for and what do people miss about him? His decency, his humanity and his incredible ability to call them down the middle.

Leaving aside the validity of that opinion, Rush wondered how NBC journalist Luke Russert felt about the appointment. If anybody knew who he was, they might ask him.

My own opinion: a few years ago, she would have been getting coffee, not starting at the top.

Hillary thinks her power is smart, it’s the Arab World that’s dumb:

Months after President Barack Obama hastened the end of the Mubarak regime, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wants the military regime in Cairo to move faster on elections.

Parliamentary elections are scheduled in three weeks, but discord, suspicion and protests may upset the timetable. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are leading the pack, but no one really understands the parties’ policies.

The United States’ first direct presence in Middle East elections was five years ago in the Palestinian Authority voting. There, American-supervised balloting mirrored America’s principle of democracy in action.

Aides to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice woke her up in the middle of the night with election results that she found hard to believe. Hamas had won, throwing the PA into disarray and leading to the eventual forced ouster of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party rule in Gaza.

You offer some people democracy on a platter, yet they swipe it away and choose Islamic law instead. What’s a Secretary of State to do? You say that’s the way you wanted it all along:

William Taylor, an administration Middle East official who recently visited Egypt, said that if the Muslim Brotherhood wins, “I think we will be satisfied, if it is a free and fair election.”

Mubarak was a son-of-a-bitch, no doubt—but we’d be pleased to have their sons-of-bitches replace our son-of-a-bitch. See how smart this is? I can’t make sense of it either.

Madame Secretary continues to dazzle (do try to keep up):

Speaking to the National Democratic Institute on the Obama administration’s response to the Arab Spring uprisings, Clinton said the United States deals differently with pro-democracy movements, depending on the local situation.

Despite her dissatisfaction with the Egyptian’s regime’s months-long delay of elections, she said that democracy in the Middle East “can provide a more sustainable basis for addressing” American interests.

She tried to justify America’s intervention in Libya while it has laid low in Syria, whose President Bashar Assad she called a “reformer” in the beginning of the anti-regime protests seven months ago.

Clinton said action was necessary in Libya to protect civilians. In Syria, 3,500 civilians have been murdered in the uprising, but she tried to explain, “Sometimes, as in Libya, we can bring dozens of countries together to protect civilians and help people liberate their country without a single American life lost.

“In other cases, to achieve that same goal, we would have to act alone, at a much greater cost, with far greater risks and perhaps even with troops on the ground. Our choices also reflect other interests in the region with a real impact on Americans’ lives – including our fight against al Qaeda; defense of our allies; and a secure supply of energy.”

Libya is a large producer of oil. Syria is not. Damascus also is a key factor in the Arab-Israeli struggle, is an ally of Iran and in effect dominates Lebanon through pro-Syrian and Hizbullah parties.

Did she… did I just hear… are you telling me…?

Did we just go to war—sorry, time-limited, scope-limited kinetic military action—for oil? They’ve got to be pretty smart in the Obama administration if they can carry on the Bush Doctrine and not get called on it by a single media outlet, foreign government, anybody.

Wait, I’ve got a slogan… ahem… No Blood for Oil! Catchy, huh?

Nah, too lame.

Warning: Graphic image below.

I told you it was bad. He looks pretty badly worked over, doesn’t he?

Muammar Gaddafi’s blood-streaked body was on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping center Friday as Libyan authorities argued about what to do with his remains and questions deepened over official accounts of the longtime dictator’s death. New video emerged of his violent, chaotic last moments, showing fighters beating him as they drag him away.

Nearly every aspect of Thursday’s killing of Gaddafi was mired in confusion, a sign of the difficulties ahead for Libya. Its new rulers are disorganized, its people embittered and divided. But the ruling National Transitional Council said it would declare the country’s liberation on Saturday, the starting point for a timetable that calls for a new interim government within a month and elections within eight months.

The top UN rights chief raised concerns that Gaddafi may have been shot to death after being captured alive. The fate of his body seemed tied up in squabbles among Libya’s factions, as fighters from Misrata – a city brutally besieged by Gaddafi’s forces during the civil war – seemed to claim ownership of it, forcing the delay of a planned burial Friday.

I would like to suggest that the manner of Libya’s disposal of His Fearsome Feces may presage a violent future—more French Revolution than American—but upon reflection, Qaddafi’s death recalls that of Benito Mussolini after the fall of Italy’s fascist government. As much of an embarrassment as Italy’s succession of post-war governments has been, it would be a model of stability and decorum in any Arab country. Here’s hoping Libya can manage to be a shadow of Italy.

PS: Look who’s clarifying her remarks:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she supports an investigation by the United Nations of the circumstances surrounding Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s death.

…

“From my perspective, such an investigation would be very important to establish accountability, rule of law and pave the way for the inclusive democratic future that the Libyans tell me that they want,” Clinton said.

What happened to “we came, we saw, he’s dead”? So much for the liberal value of every single life. Except for fetuses, Republicans, and Arab dictators, I guess.

Hey, I love to dance on an a-hole’s grave as much as the next ghoul. I’m saving my air miles to fly to Ramallah just so I can go Occupy Wall Street (if you get my euphemism) on Arafat’s tomb.

But I don’t know, isn’t this unseemly? Could Condi Rice have gotten away with it?

Besides, is a “time-limited, scope-limited military action”, that was supposed to take “days not weeks” something to celebrate after seven months’ time, when a French plane flushed Qaddafi out and Libyan rebels executed him? Where’s his trial in lower Manhattan (not least for Pan Am 103)?

Anyway, UN Watch reminds us of a time when Muammar Qaddafi was persona more grata than he is now:

GENEVA, October 21 – While the UN human rights office today called for an investigation into Gaddafi’s death, an international coalition of 45 human rights groups today urged Ban Ki-moon and UN rights chief Navi Pillay to investigate two UN Human Rights Council officials for their alleged actions over three decades to shield Libyan dictator Col. Qaddafi from scrutiny of his regime’s gross violations of human rights.

The appeal names Jean Ziegler, a member of the UNHRC Advisory Committee, who in 1989 announced the creation of the “Moammar Qaddafi Prize for Human Rights.” While Libya’s rights record was being reviewed last year by the UNHRC, a Libyan-funded group tied to Ziegler distributed within the UN a Ziegler-edited book comparing Qaddafi to French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The 45 NGOs, mostly from Africa, also urged the council to fire Najat Al-Hajjaji, Qaddafi’s long-time representative to UN human rights bodies, from the council’s expert working group on mercenaries and human rights.

More:

A Swiss TV report this year confirmed Ziegler’s key role in creating the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, which it described as “an instrument of propaganda for the dictator.” As a result, citing his Qaddafi connections, the famed Salzburg Festival decided to cancel Ziegler’s keynote address at its event this summer, sparking a heated controversy in Austria.

“If a leading music festival was ashamed enough to distance itself from Gaddafi apologists,” asked Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch, “why is the United Nations not doing the same? We call on UN rights chief Navi Pillay to conduct a full investigation into how Gaddafi apologists like Ziegler and Al-Hajjaji were given key posts at the UN Human Rights Council.”

I couldn’t be happier that Qaddafi is dead, as I was when Saddam died, when Arafat died, when Osama died, when Awlaki died, et al. But all this happiness hasn’t exactly brought about world peace—and Obama may have something to answer for when weapons liberated from Libya are used by Palestinian Arabs against Israel.

Keep killing them terrorists, Nobel Dude. But try standing for something other than just putting a cap in tyrannical heads.

As much fun as Hillary is obviously having.

While walking the Bloodthirsty Puppy this afternoon, it came to me: the 2012 presidential election will be between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie. Long shot, probably won’t happen, but I will elaborate over time. Just remember where you heard it.

UPDATE:
These rumors of Obama dropping out or being pulled don’t just come out of the ether; they are planted. As Rush noted yesterday, when Mark Penn publicly opines on the issue, it’s the Clintons’ handiwork (he ran Hillary’s campaign); when James Carville tells Obama to panic (implying that he’s losing it), it’s the Clintons’ handiwork; when Larry Summers is quoted in a book as saying he and Peter Orszag are “home alone”, and that Bill Clinton would never have let things get to this state, that’s… well, you get the picture.

I’m not kidding. I thought Bill Clinton had been too quiet lately. But he’s talking plenty, just in whispers in people’s ears. I wonder if this lies behind Obama’s class warfare approach in recent days. If Hillary and the party establishment want to muscle him aside, they’re going to have to take on his base. It’s as if he’s saying, “now how tough do you feel?”

Just musing.

The Christie idea comes from the Sunday Fox news show in which Paul Gigot and William Kristol suggest that the Republican Party isn’t satisfied yet. There are articulate speakers, and there are conservatives—but not in the same body. Say what you will about Christie, his body can hold a lot.