The Anchoress

Former President and Savior of the World Bill Clinton, currently in New York hosting his annual Clinton Global Initiative, during which he gasses away on any and all imaginable subjects to wide coverage from the adoring press, utterly utterly mush-mouthed his response to Hugo Chavez calling President Bush “the devil.” Said Clinton:

‘Obviously I think he made a mistake,’ Clinton said in an interview on CNN. ‘He’s not hurting us, he’s just hurting himself and his country.’

Wow. Talk about blowing a moment. This could have been an enormous Sister Souljah moment for both Clintons, a chance for them to demonstrate that Democrats are not completely nuts when it comes to President Bush, that they are not so beholden to “globalism” and foreign dictates that they will remain meek…meek, hell, downright wimpy…when the American President - ANY American President - is so disrespected, and at the UN, no less. But I guess when you’re “tackling the world’s ‘meatiest problems’” it gets hard to get it right, every time.

Well, sir, while you’ve here blown your chance to lead, (not for the first time) Charley Rangel got on tv and made it clear:

‘You do not come into my country, my congressional district, and you do not condemn my president. If there is any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not. I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president, but do not come to the United States and think because we have problems with our president that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our Chief of State’…

Rangel detailed earlier this week some of his “problems” with this president (Rangel is going to rescind every tax-cut he can, if the Dems win in ‘06, and Bush is only saying what they’re saying, here), but he is exactly right - you don’t do what Chavez did. Good for Rangel.

Good heavens, even Nancy Pelosi - not the brightest meat cleaver in the pork store - has managed to figure out the right side of this issue. She calls Chavez “a thug”. Which is probably less harsh than some of the things she routinely calls Bush, but that’s okay. She’s an American; she can call the president names.

Attention, Mr. President Bush…former president Clinton does not have your back. You’re not surprised, I am sure.

I cannot help being amused though, to notice that the Democrats are speaking out on a story the press tried to help them with by playing it down. But they are very smart to get out in front of the story, and to unambiguously condemn Chavez.

Much smarter than Clinton, it seems, who couldn’t work up a proper sense of umbrage, even as a former president.

Allahpundit is not convinced it’s sincere, but appreciates Rangel’s words, anyway.

I wrote yesterday, This is not going to play well and the dems will not be able to respond well to it. Smarter newsies will try to bury it and change the subject. Stupid ones will air it and think it’s a joke. Smart conservative bloggers will stuff as much of this into their harddrives as they can and haul it out ’round mid-October.

I assumed the Democrats would be busy trying to triangulate the issue (as Clinton did) with a mush-mouthed remark that would “sort of” criticize Chavez while not pissing off the far-left netroots - a tactic that clearly would not work. Instead, they did the right thing, albeit 24 hours later. Had their responses been more immediate, that would have been even better for them.

Then again, it’s not like the GOP made a quick job of condemning Chavez, either…but they’ve been lacking cojones for a while.

Speaking of cojones, the American bishops need to show some, too.

Meanwhile Ace demonstrates why it is so difficult to take the left seriously when it comes to Chavez (and Ahmandinejad) After all, Ahmandinejad just looks so much more “hip.” I always suspected that for the left it was 90% about appearances.

And Siggy asks and answers a great question:

Why were Pope Benedict’s remarks considered so ‘politically insensitive’? Why were are the remarks made by Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmandinejad at the United Nations considered alternative ‘political’ worldviews? Why is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seen as tortured ‘political’ issue only? Read it all.

And…Kobayashi Maru is feeling a bit intuitive about things and finding that “the grey areas seem less grey.” He’s feeling like sides are being chosen, suddenly, decisively and irrevocably - from the Russian nightclubs, to the Killing Fields, to the halls of the United Nations, to their so-called “peacekeepers”, and he spells it out in a three parter you’ll want to read here, here and here. It’s a good read.