Ex-presidents should be seen and not heard

I know it's not written anywhere, but it was a pleasing custom while it lasted. And it lasted until the polecats took over the Democrat party in the 70's. Check out this puff piece on Bubba Clinton in the Washington Post - Bill Clinton Takes Spot On Global Stage:

In 2001, in the opening months of his ex-presidency, Bill Clinton confided to an aide that he had decided on his dream job for the next chapter of his life: secretary general of the United Nations.

The goal may not be realistic, he acknowledged, but he then went on to analyze all the factors in minute detail, as though he were preparing for a political campaign: whether a U.S. president would ever see fit to back him, for one, and what it would take to persuade other nations to bend the long-standing tradition that the top job does not go to someone from a country with permanent status on the U.N. Security Council.

His ambition, as the aide described it, was both breathtaking and entirely logical for a natural-born politician who had reached the top of the American political ladder: "president of the world."

Grab the sick sacks!

Four years later, say several associates who have spoken with him in recent months, Clinton regards his dream of leading the United Nations as something more than a flight of fancy and something less than a serious prospect. Already, however, he has succeeded to a surprising degree in fashioning his ex-presidency to make himself a dominant player on the world stage.

Dominant? Sheesh, he has photo-ops.

His ambitions are no less obvious than when he was on the rise as a domestic politician. Clinton wants to present an alternative face of America to the rest of the world -- in implicit opposition to President Bush, and to create a legacy that builds on his eight years in office.

Ah that's the Bubba we know. He wants to snipe from the peanut gallery while enjoying the perks of his office. But get ready for the biggie:

The extent to which the 42nd president has preserved influence even after leaving the White House will be far more obvious in September. That is when a large delegation of world leaders, U.S. politicians, business leaders and celebrities of various stripes will arrive in New York for the first Clinton Global Initiative.

Woohoo! I wonder if the initiative is chasing the female staffers around the office?

The event, as Clinton recently described it, is modeled after the famous annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But Clinton has said he wants his three-day event to be more focused on concrete results. "I'm telling people not to come unless they are prepared to make a commitment to do something when they leave" on the conference's themes of fighting poverty, religious conflict and environmental degradation.

Sigh. Bubba did nothing while he was in office but move his lips. I'm sure that will suffice for this shindig. More gag-inducing puffery by following the link.

But the mention of Jimmy Carter in the article as the prototype for Bubba's exertions, reminds me that although Jimmy may not be bucking for "president of the world," he's got the market cornered on endorsing dictatorial thugs. Building off his success in rubber stamping Hugo Chavez's fraudulent election in Venezuela, he just recently "helped out" in Ethiopia:

Ethiopia's electoral board appears to have lost control of the vote counting for the May 15 legislative polls, European Union election observers said in a report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The confidential report went on to say the EU might have to make a public denunciation of developments to distance itself from "the lack of transparency, and assumed rigging" of the vote
...
The EU report also said former U.S. President Carter, who led a team of 50 election observers, undermined the electoral process and EU criticism with "his premature blessing of the elections and early positive assessment of the results."

Unless there is a "drastic reverse toward good democratic practice" the observer team and EU "will have to publicly denounce the situation."

"Otherwise, the EU jointly with ex-President Carter will be held largely responsible for the lack of transparency, and assumed rigging, of the elections."

Things must be pretty bad if the EU complains about what a wuss you are. Good ole Jimmy - give him a foreign trip and his name in the papers and he'll certify your thugocracy. He's a regular "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for dictators.

Update: I added the fetching snap of Bubba from FR poster Main Street.

Paging Bob Geldof!

South Africa To Have First Space Agency By Next Year:

It is important that poverty-stricken South Africa have it own space agency so the country can cooperate with other countries on science-related issues, according to Mosibudi Mangena, the country's science and technology minister.
...
The minister denies that the space initiative is an unecessary expense in a country where close to half the adult population is unemployed and HIV/AIDS has infected roughly a quarter of the adult population.

Not that idiot again!

Bob Geldof hawking his new cause

Aside from looking rode hard and put away wet, ole Bob Geldof has a brainstorm! He's going to put on a show to convince the taxpayers of the developed world to shovel more bucks into the African kleptocracies. It's an oldie but a goodie! Bruce Anderson is similarly impressed in the (UK) Times - Silly, even sillier. And Geldof:

BEING A pop singer must be boring. Nothing to do but make hideous music, count the takings and fend off screaming teenage females; no wonder some of the pop tribe try to alleviate spiritual dissatisfaction and search for profundity.

In the case of Bob Geldof, however, the search has led to a profound shallowness. On the eve of the G8 summit, Geldof intends to hold a Live 8 concert. He would like his young followers to believe that the West is to blame for all of Africa’s difficulties: if we would stop encouraging Africa to participate in global trade and content ourselves with providing enough aid, solving the continent’s plight would be as easy as wailing into a microphone.

If aid were the answer, the problem would have been solved long ago. Over the past few decades aid donors have spent hundreds of billions on Africa — to what end?

Since 1980, over the whole world, the number of those living on less than a dollar a day has halved. In sub-Saharan Africa, it has doubled. This is not because of too little aid. The explanation lies in too much corruption, theft and oppression. Africa suffers from systematic misgovernment that condemns at least 100 million people to misery, in the midst of natural resources that could make them prosperous. Africans would have no difficulty in coping with free trade, if only they were governed properly.

That's uncharitable, Bruce. The lefties can't get along without a designated victim class, even if it is little hard on the victims.

The new Live 8 initiative is good news for Parisian couturiers, German carmakers and Swiss bankers. For Africans, it is a delusion and a deception. Geldof and his friends are using that benighted continent as a catwalk.

P. J. O’Rourke said that American actresses’ political views fall into three categories: silly, very silly and Shirley MacLaine. For pop stars, it is silly, very silly and Bob Geldof. He must be disappointed that some other group has already taken the name Simple Minds.

At least Shirley was good looking. Here's an easy test, Bob. How much of our taxes would you like to send to Bobby Mugabe?

Sheesh, it's the violet sniffer!

"There is not a day that goes by without me inhaling the perfume of the discreet violet”
- the flower that symbolised loyalty to Napoleon.

Jacques Chirac tries to cure his EU blues by picking Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin to be the new Prime Minister of France. You may remember him as the geek with the Napoleon fetish. Gosh, that ought to help.

Lurch steals one from Bubba's playbook

"John Kerry checking out my friend’s boobs."

Hey, why not? It worked for Bubba! One problem though - while the Angolan Pepperpot is surely no brighter than Hillary, she does pay all the bills for Lurch's luxurious lifestyle. Could be stormy seas ahead!

(Hat tip: FR)

Whole lotta whining going on!

Amongst the Euroweenies, that is. If it isn't a "real crisis," it's a gloomy political outlook spreading across the EU. That's odd, it looked to me like 56% of the French voters were rather happy Sunday night. But not to worry, the EUrocrats have a a few cards left up their sleeves - Apres le 'non', plus ca change:

Like the demise of Mark Twain, rumours of the death of the European Union have been greatly exaggerated.

The implications of yesterday’s French referendum on the EU constitution were amply summed up in advance by Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, the current EU president, when he declared that if the French said ‘oui’ European integration would proceed, and if they said ‘non’ European integration would proceed.

That’s what the EU means by ‘consulting the people’. That’s why France’s President Chirac threatened that if the French voted no, they would be made to vote again until they said yes. No doubt such a fate will befall the Dutch if they vote ‘nee’ in their own referendum this Wednesday, unless they do so by an overwhelming majority.

In any event, this whole crisis has been more about political momentum rather than any possible real change in direction. For regardless of the constitution, the reality is that the countries of the EU are already the helpless captives of an all-encompassing, anti-democratic bureaucracy with a life of its own.

Much of the constitution was always going to be imposed upon us anyway through the seemingly endless wrinkles in existing EU treaties. Indeed, the creation of an EU diplomatic service and the harmonisation of criminal justice are already well under way.

In other words, nothing so trivial as the will of the people would ever be allowed to derail the EU project, which has come to define the world view for a whole class of politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers who have governed the nations of Europe for a generation.

So much for democracy, I guess. Mark Steyn has more:

Only in totalitarian dictatorships does the ballot come with a pre-ordained correct answer. Yet President Juncker distilled the great flaw at the heart of the EU constitution into one straightforward sentence that cut through all the thickets of Giscard's unreadable verbiage. The American constitution begins with the words "We the people". The starting point for the EU constitution is: "We know better than the people."

After that, the rest doesn't matter: you can't do trickle-down nation-building. The British, who've written more constitutions for more real nations than anybody in history and therefore can't plead the same ignorance as President Juncker, should be especially ashamed of going along with this farrago of a travesty of a charade.

Ah, say the Eurofetishists, but you naysayers are gloating undeservedly: the French didn't suddenly see the light and decide British Eurosceptics had been right all along; they rejected the EU constitution because they thought it was an Anglo-Saxon racket to impose capitalism on their pampered protectionist utopia.

But so what? Britain's naysayers don't have to reject the constitution for the same reason as France's commies, fascists, racists, eco-nutters, anachronistic unionists, featherbedded farmers, middle-aged "students", Trot professors and welfare queens, bless 'em all. If they want to go down the Eurinal of history clinging to their unaffordable welfare state, their 30-hour work weeks, 10-month work years and seven-year work decades, that's up to them. If Britain doesn't, that should be up to Britain.

The Eurinal of history? It does have a ring to it.

Memorial Day 2005

Non!

EU dreams collide with French antipathy:

A tattered European Union flag had been lowered to half mast in the heart of the Brussels' EU quarter even before the French polls closed at 10pm on Sunday night.

Sniff!

Although EU leaders insisted the show would go on, it was a night in which the dreams of Europe's elite collided head on with public antipathy.

Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, holder of the rotating EU presidency, insisted that the ratification of the constitutional treaty already completed in nine member states should continue.

But over the coming days Mr Juncker will meet 24 fellow European leaders, including Tony Blair, British prime minister, some of whom will express severe doubts about whether they can ratify a treaty so decisively rejected by France.

The scale of the No vote in France was such that senior officials in London said the constitution's prospects were fragile, although Mr Blair is anxious to avoid giving the impression that he wants to kill the treaty.

Remember, it isn't dead until they drive a stake through its heart:

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and rotating president of the EU, said last week that, even in the event of a French and Dutch No, EU nations should continue putting the treaty to votes until they gave the "right answer". But in Paris such talk was angrily rejected as an affront to democracy. Paul El Sair, a 72-year-old junk dealer and staunch opponent of the constitution, said: "People are saying that we must vote again if we vote No. You must be joking."

Bureaucrats are famously humorless, Paul.

It's a conspiracy!

Out in Beverly Hills, Oliver Stone Arrested on Drug, DUI Charges. Hey wait a sec. I thought he had left for France?

Today's the big EU Constitution vote in France!

But don't get all excited - Mark Steyn observes that the EU just won't take 'no' for an answer:

Following Sunday's vote in France, on Wednesday Dutch voters get to express their opinion on the proposed ''European Constitution.'' Heartening to see democracy in action, notwithstanding the European elite's hysterical warnings that, without the constitution, the continent will be set back on the path to Auschwitz. I haven't seen the official ballot, but the choice seems to be: "Check Box A to support the new constitution; check Box B for genocide and conflagration."

Alas, this tactic doesn't seem to have worked. So, a couple of days before the first referendum, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters know how much he values their opinion:

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.

True - they can just get one of their pet judges to overule it. More japery by following the link including a nice takedown of Euroweenie Will Hutton:

Sick in bed a couple of months back, I started reading A Declaration of Interdependence: Why America Should Join the World by Will Hutton, and found it such a laugh I was soon hurling my medication away and doing cartwheels round the room. Hutton was a sort of eminence grise to Tony Blair, at least in his pre-warmongering pre-Bush-poodle phase. Hutton is the master of the dead language of statism that distinguishes the complacent Europhile from a good percentage of Americans, not all of them Republicans.
...
Hutton says that it's his ''affection for the best of America that makes me so angry that it has fallen so far from the standards it expects of itself.'' The great Euro-thinker is not arguing that America is betraying the Founding Fathers, but that the Founding Fathers themselves got it hopelessly wrong. He compares the American and French Revolutions, and decides the latter was better because instead of the radical individualism of the 13 colonies the French promoted ''a new social contract.''

Gosh, it's sure been a swell success in France!

Entranced by his Europhilia, Hutton insists that "all western democracies subscribe to a broad family of ideas that are liberal or leftist."

Given that New Hampshire has been a continuous democracy for two centuries longer than Germany, this seems a doubtful proposition. It would be more accurate to say that almost all European nations subscribe to a broad family of ideas that are statist.

And they're welcome to their private perversions, as long as they stop humping our leg.