The Left and Condoleezza Rice

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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Condoleezza Rice’s race and gender are not the most important things about her career and abilities, I guess I should say. But I’m still amazed at how little credit this president gets for promoting a black woman to such a position, and, more importantly, by his obvious respect and admiration for her. His management style is clearly post-racial, and his comfort with female peers is impressive.


You know, Bill Clinton was celebrated for his progressiveness, and ease with African-Americans. But it’s inconceivable that he would have given so much power and authority to a black female peer. Why does President Bush get no respect on this score? I guess it reveals that much of the left’s diversity mania is about the upholding of a certain political ideology, rather than ethnic or gender variety itself. Depressing.


A New Low


Here’s how the journalist Robert Fisk begins an article on the brutal murder of Margaret Hassan in Iraq:


“Who killed Margaret Hassan? After the grief, the astonishment, heartbreak, anger and fury over the apparent murder of such a good and saintly woman, that is the question that her friends – and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents – will be asking. This Anglo-Irish lady held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need. She hated the UN sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American invasion. So who killed Margaret Hassan?”


Mr. Fisk goes on to imply and then weasels away from implying that America or Prime Minister Allawi were behind her murder. I really don’t know what else to say. He’s depraved. But then we knew that already.


A Killing In Fallujah – I


The video now celebrated on Al Jazeera of a young Marine shooting what appears to be a defenseless Iraqi insurgent is grim enough; and if the Marine in question is found guilty of violating rules of conduct, then he should face punishment. But I have to say I cannot stand in judgment of this young man, after what must have been brutal, terrifying days of urban conflict. This is surely what they call “what happens in wartime.”


It may not be morally defensible; but it is psychologically understandable. Frankly, I’m grateful for what this man, half my age, is doing with his fellows in unspeakably terrifying circumstances. Compare his action with Abu Ghraib, and you can see the difference. One a snap judgment in a furious battle context; the other a pre-meditated example of abuse and murder of prisoners in American custody.


A Killing In Fallujah – II


From the Times of London, which has just put all its content online for free:


“In the south of Fallujah yesterday, US Marines found the armless, legless body of a blonde woman, her throat slashed and her entrails cut out. Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the US Navy Corps, said that she had been dead for a while, but at that location for only a day or two. The woman was wearing a blue dress; her face had been disfigured. It was unclear if the remains were the body of the Irish-born aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, or of Teresa Borcz, 54, a Pole abducted two weeks ago. Both were married to Iraqis and held Iraqi citizenship; both were kidnapped in Baghdad last month.”


There you see the difference between the occasional horror of war and premeditated, conscious barbarism.


Quote for the Week


“Clinton went back and executed that retarded guy. That said, ‘I share your values.'” – A “senior Kerry adviser,” explaining his frustrations about Senator Kerry’s inability to connect with everyday Americans, in The New Republic.



Mr. Sullivan’s writings appear daily at www.andrewsullivan.com.

The New York Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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