We’re well into the Christmas season, and if the spirit of the Christ child is under assault we have an abundance of air and wind, a lot of it vile and foul.
One of the study commissions at the United Nations, perhaps stacked with vegetarians overdosing on tofu and bean sprouts, concludes that the flatulence of cows is more damaging to the environment than automobiles. Poor Bossy, contentedly chewing her cud and minding her own business, now exposed as just another scapegoat (scapecow?) to blame for global warming.
But it’s not just cows. Some of our most distinguished statespersons are polluting the environment with a certain strain of flatulence, too. Jim Baker and his Iraq Study Group contributed more than their rightful share only last week, with the advice that if we would just quit being beastly to the nice folks determined to kill us peace would rain (if not reign) on Earth. Kofi Annan, who finishes his term as the secretary-general of the U.N. this month and will be liberated to return to the sweet life in his home in Ghana, can’t wait. He had a lot of rude things to say yesterday about America as a nation with no respect for human rights or the rule of law, always eager to bullyrag innocent bomb-throwers and airplane hijackers. When you hang out with peace-loving diplomats from Syria and Zimbabwe, Iran and North Korea, you probably can’t help being offended by warmongering Americans.
Mr. Annan is particularly upset by the way the United States is going after international terrorists. “When military force is used,” he said in a speech prepared for delivery at, of all places, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Mo., “the world at large will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose … in accord with broadly accepted norms.”
He generously concedes that most terrorism is not nice, “but no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others.” A peace-loving president would simply tell his ambassador to introduce another politely worded resolution. Take that, Osama.
However, the most energetic contributor to worldwide flatulence is not even at the U.N., but has lately been hanging out in Los Angeles. Jimmy Carter, the former president, has been looking for villains in his relentless pursuit of peace, and he thinks he has found them. They were there all the time, but until the man who once faced down a killer rabbit came along nobody was brave enough to point them out.
“It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine,” he wrote in an op-ed essay in the Los Angeles Times, “to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents.”
Well, of course! The Jews did it. Why hadn’t someone thought to blame them before now?
“We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were elected,” he wrote. “The elections were almost flawless and turnout was high — except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraint only 2 percent of registered voters managed to cast ballots.”
Everyone would know already that the Jews did it except that it turns out that Hillary’s vast right-wing media conspiracy was owned by the Jews all the time. So tight is this control that Mr. Jimmy can’t even get a decent review for his new book comparing the defense of Israel to South African apartheid: “Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories. … Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve signed books in five stores. … My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors.”
How could a cow match a deal like that?
Pruden on Politics runs Tuesdays and Fridays.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.