Dispirited

Maybe it's the fact that I've been laid low twice in the past two weeks by some unknown ailment that has left me weak, feverish, sore and arthritic, but a survey of what passes for news seems quite bleak to me.

I watched a documentary last night about the Canadian general, Romeo Dellaire, who was in charge of the U.N. Peacekeeping forces in Rwanda when the genocide started and refused to evacuate. Anyone who watches it or reads his book, Shake Hands With The Devil, should agree with his characterization of the weasels at the U.N. who refused to give him support in doing his job as "bastards." Bill Clinton comes in for his share of blame for dithering forever before doing anything in Rwanda and after most of the damage was done in Bosnia, yet never breathed a word of criticism for the U.N. This is the model for Democrat foreign policy: enter into the hall of mirrors known as high-level talks until the genocide is complete then come and lay a wreath. The Bush administration hasn't done much better in Darfur, but at least it has the explanation that it has its hands full elsewhere. In a rational world, we'd boot the U.N. off our soil, withdraw from it (or at least drop our funding to near zero) and put our money into an alliance for protecting victims from genocide.

I can't understand why the New York Times is still publishing and its editors aren't out on bail, and why universities across the land aren't announcing plans to announcing plans to close their journalism departments, for undermining respect for law and constitutional government. We have adopted the belief that news reporters are above the law, and that the right of privacy trumps national security. We don't deserve to be protected with courts, Senators and news media like this.

Meanwhile, the populace don't seem to know what's going on. All they want is jokes about how dumb Bush is and how lame the war in Iraq is, and to know who the latest find in the TV star search shows is. I'm ashamed that there aren't riots in the streets burning copies of the New York and L.A. Times and other papers attacking the president for nothing more than partisan political reasons. They have abandoned all pretense of objectivity or fairness. Of course, expecting loyalty to the nation from them hasn't been an issue for 30 years.