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01/31/2003 Archived Entry: "mandela's attack on bush"

MANDELA'S ATTACK ON BUSH: Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist and first post-apartheid president of South Africa, has earned his place in history. This does not make his recent foreign policy pronouncements any less harebrained. Of all the outlandish charges he makes against President Bush, according to this UPI report, perhaps the most reckless is that the administration is somehow disregarding the United Nations because it has a black secretary general.

First of all, Bush endorsed Koffi Annan for another term as secretary general, even though some conservatives urged him not to do so. Second, such leading Bush adminstration officials as Vice President Dick Cheney have certainly criticized the U.N. when it had white secretary generals. Third, whatever you think about a war against Iraq, this administration has bent over backwards to work within the U.N. on these issues. This is despite the fact that the U.N. is a body that puts in charge of its disarmnament comission, Libya in charge of its human rights commission and behaves as if the U.S. and Israel are worse than your run-of-the-mill Third World dicator.

Is there any policy question left where conservatives don't find the race card played against them?