None Dare Call It Corruption

If it seems odd that ‘Cheney-gate’ hits the frontpages for days as some kind of pumped up scandal, but continued corruption at the UN goes entirely unnoticed by the media and the left, it’s because they protect their own. (I believe that’s called a culture of corruption by some definitions.)

Did you know that the United Arab Emirites just paid off Kofi Annan with a cool half-million dollars?

Annan received his award at a glittering February 6 ceremony in Dubai, as outlined in a press release from Annan's office that noted the honor, but neglected to mention the half million bucks that came with it. Surrounded by presidents, businessmen, and nearly 130 environmental ministers, Annan collected this purse as winner of the biennial Zayed International Prize for the Environment, given out by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

So entwined were Annan's own U.N. colleagues in the process that selected him for this award that it's tempting to relabel the entire affair as one of the U.N.'s biggest back-scratching contests. Chairing the jury panel, which voted unanimously for Annan, was the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, Klaus Toepfer, and among the jurors was the U.N. undersecretary-general for Economic and Social Affairs, José Antonio Ocampo. Both men owe their current jobs to Annan. Serving as an "observer" of the jury panel was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akram, who just finished a term as president of the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, which works closely with Annan. On the
website for the Zayed prize, the public relations contacts include a U.N. staffer, Nick Nuttall, listed complete with his U.N. email account and phone number at the Nairobi headquarters of the U.N. Environment Program. weeklystandard.com

The frenzy of the left and the press in treating Cheney accidentally shooting his friend on a hunting trip as a scandal is nothing new. Everytime Bush sneezes, it's a scandal. His every breath is no doubt resented by some on the left. (It's only after the 'scandal' doesn't pan out that it becomes a Bush-Rovian distraction.) What also shouldn't be surprising is that pointing out that what Democrats are calling singularly Republican corruption is actually not illegal activity and is in fact something Democrats as well as Republicans engage in routinely.

Incredibly, Democrats and scandal mongers won't consider Kofi Annan's 'prize' worthy of attention at all. "The UN is not corrupt," they say, "Bush is."

Well, since the UN is the only liberal hope for peace in the world, the left can be excused from tolerating such corruption. Corruption like raping children, engaging in the sex trafficking, killing and torturing civilians, watching as genocide is committed, embezzling billions of dollars, taking bribes from Saddam Hussein... is ok on the left-- if you are a liberal institution .

In fact the most corrupt administration in history is undoubtedly Kofi Annan's UN. But don't tell Democrats that, or you will be accused of 'engaging in political attacks'.

[H]egemonic Word count: 510