Resembling no one more than Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate Scandal, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan imploded at his annual end of the year press conference today, lashing out at the media and accusing one particular London Times reporter who dared to ask questions about his son Kojo’s “diplomatically discounted” Mercedes an “embarrassment” to his publication. From the AP:
At Wednesday’s press conference, one of the most persistent questioners, James Bone of The Times of London, mentioned a Mercedes-Benz that Kojo Annan imported into Ghana using his father’s diplomatic immunity to avoid taxes and customs duty, and said some of the secretary-general’s accounts of oil-for-food related events, “don’t really make sense.”
“I think you’re being very cheeky,” Annan interrupted. “Listen James Bone, you’ve been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let’s move on to a serious journalist.”
The president of the U.N. Correspondents Association told Annan that Bone had a right to ask a question and was not an embarrassment.
Bone walked out and said later: “The Volcker report raises many serious questions about the integrity of the U.N., and it’s important that public officials paid with taxpayer money answer these questions fully and without accusing the press.”
Video of Kofi’s bizarre performance is available online at CNN and ran on Fox News tonight. Annan has twelve more months in his term as Secretary General. [That's the good news.-ed. What's the bad news? He has twelve more months.]
UPDATE: Claudia logs in.
ìAnnan has twelve more months in his term as Secretary General. [That's the good news.-ed. What's the bad news? He has twelve more months.]î
Who will replace Annan? Itís very possible that the next UN leader will be much worse. We may eventually be commiserating about the ìgood old days of Annan.î
“I think you’re being very cheeky,” Annan interrupted. “Listen James Bone, you’ve been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let’s move on to a serious journalist.”
I guess the Democrats shouldn’t have worried so much about John Bolton’s alleged diplomatic shortcomings. It would be hard to outdo Kofi when it comes to boorish behavior.
I am shocked, shocked that Mr. Bone (I bet he’s heard a lot of “the name is Bone . . . James Bone”) made bones over such a trivial matter as a Mercedes Benz, and in the presence of the ExcelentÌsimo Kofi. (/end sarcasm)
Annan epitomizes the African Dictator (NOT meant as a racial slur). He also epitomizes the gross failure of international bodies such as the EU and the UN–these are bodies divorced from democratic accountability–While nationalism has been viewed as a disease by the left, at least it provides a basis for removing scum such as Annan–What a travesty–Drop our funding for the UN and kick their sorry butts out–Let them find a new home, say, in Port Au Prince.
Sounds like someone should send James Bone an honorary pair of pajamas!
Ron Silver has a documentary film out (“Broken Promises”), on the UN–am I the last person on planet to know, the website says it’s been out since late November. Ron Silver is one of the good people–as we all know–and this appears to be something worthy of support.
wwwbrokenpromisesmovie.com
http://www.brokenpromisesmovie.com/
I hope the next Secretary General is more corrupt than Kofi. Things have to get a lot worse before we throw these parasites out of our country.
Maybe the next guy will run a prostitution ring out of the UN HQ building. Do you think that would do it?
No, I’m dreaming. If paying a quarter of the costs of the blue helmeted child rapists won’t do it; if accepting millions in bribes from a corrupt dictator won’t do it, what will?
The king has spoken. The subjects must pipe down.
Let’s get Jeff Gannon in there & see Kofi really go batshit
How ’bout Lester Kinsolving?
DAILY SCORECARD – “Meet the Egyptian Editor Who Denies the Holocaust”
Oh he did worse than a Nixon.
Now, when General HonorÈ got angry at a reporter, he told the reporter that he was “stuck on stupid” — and then expained why. The General was holding the news conference in order to get vital info out to the people, and the reporter was flinging dung.
When President Bush gets angry at the press, he gives a series of speeches in order to break through its filter. Once, he referred to a reporter as trying to do a “transcontinental” thing, but Bush did this not on his own account, but in order to save face for the Frenchman by Bush’s side. Another time Bush was caught on an open mike, accurately characterizing a reporter named Clymer.
But when Kofi Annan gets angry at the press, he vituperates and also, along with his angry cronies in Peking and elsewhere, seeks to seize control of the Internet, tax it, and censor it.
Why is this pompous crooked laughingstock, this automated thief, still at the UN’s helm?
It should surprise nobody that Claudia Rosett has an excellent piece on this over at National Review Online:
http://www.nationalreview.com/rosett/rosett200512221325.asp
Dare I say that it’s required reading?
Er, ForNow at December 22, 2005 01:19 PM
Because nobody can do a darn thing about it?
Where/How do you start an impeachment process at the UN?
Well why doesn’t Kofi make himself step down. He’s a fine one to be calling another an embarassment. Can Kofi do nothing to embarass himself? Try to protect a ruthless, ambitious, imperialistic mass-murderous cranky despot? Preside over a super-fraud of an oil-for-food program? Then flail like a soaked, bedraggled peacock for attention while the U.S., Australia, and others help out against the tsunami’s aftermath?
Kofi Annan has no shame, no embarassment. He likes to “boldly” point out risks, conflicts, problems, and then do nothing to solve or avoid them. Pointing them out and cultivating them are both in his power-&-profit zone. He’s a pompous, spoilt crook who thinks he’s entitled to the world. With Voino weeping tears like a moat around that puffed-up leech.
Just a suggestion, but how about a “hall of shame” with pictures of heads of state who in the past have begged the international community for cash aid only to pad their own pockets, a brief estimate of how much was spent on them and how much they actually spent on their people, only rule is once a place is earned in the hall it can never be removed.
Kofi isn’t the only diplomat at the U.N. that would find a home amongst friends, but would probably be the most vociferous about his inclusion
“No, I’m dreaming. If paying a quarter of the costs of the blue helmeted child rapists won’t do it; if accepting millions in bribes from a corrupt dictator won’t do it, what will?”
“Where/How do you start an impeachment process at the UN?”
First, the press has to report accurately what is happening now. Or even report it semi-accurately, so people at least pay attention. The more people know about the UN, the less they trust it.
Second, after that has happened, the UN has to do something of that ill nature again. You can think of it as the very last straw. How big does it have to be? Just big enough that US, UK, Japan, and Australia agree to jointly and “unilaterally” withhold all funds, sans a complete remaking of the body.
Or the Anglosphere could start a separate body and let entrophy handle the UN.
RogerA.
“Annan epitomizes the African Dictator (NOT meant as a racial slur).”
Annam wasn’t even good enough to be president of Ghana let alone dictator.
Every day that Annan the Leech remains in office, the case waxes stronger for the U.S. pull out of the U.N. along with Australia, Japan, and the U.K. if we can convince ‘em.
Every day that Annan the Leech remains in office, more of the public realizes that he’s a little leech in charge of a big leech, the U.N. itself.
Hey, Kofi, stick around a while!
Need proof that the left has grown stupid, that their brains have drained away? If they had any brains, they would be CLAMORING for Annan’s removal and replacement, in order to save the U.N.!
As bad as Kofi is, and I am not defending him, you are focusing your anger at the wrong object. Kofi is worst than previous SGs (Secretary General), but not by a large margin. If another SG has a stronger character, can he/she save the UN? I doubt it.
The whole charter (esp the Security Council, permanent seats and rotating seats) is in trouble.
I’m not the one trying to save the U.N., I’d like to see it wither on the vine, wither with eerie swiftness and dissolve down into a stomach-turning pool of festering decay, like in a horror movie.
The leftists are the ones desperate to save the U.N. Presumably they haven’t given up yet.
From NRO/Rossett article:
Kofi Annan departed his year-end press conference telling reporters: “You have the right to ask all questions you want to ask. I reserve the right to refuse to answer questions I don’t want to answer.
That’s a mouthful, alright! This is a man who must see the exposed scandals as some sort of accidental storm that’ll blow over.
And as has been said above, Annan is not even the problem. The entire rigamarole, using the vocabulary of “care for the downtrodden” as a front to avoid reform while the ransacking continues apace, reminds me of nothing so much as a political party gone bad.
If anybody in the administration said half of what Kofi did in a press conference–even if they even insinuated half as much–we’d have a solid week of editorials about how the First Amendment was under siege, how the press was being intimidated, how Bush lives in a bubble and refuses to admit mistakes while “lashing out” at critics, refusing to answer questions, and embarking on a dangerous, draconian road.
But since it’s his Lordship, Kofi Annan, High Protector of all that the internationist/socialist left holds dear, no one dares raise a peep.
If anybody in the administration said half of what Kofi did in a press conference–even if they even insinuated half as much–we’d have a solid week of editorials about how the First Amendment was under siege, how the press was being intimidated, how Bush lives in a bubble and refuses to admit mistakes while “lashing out” at critics, refusing to answer questions, and embarking on a dangerous, draconian road.
But since it’s his Lordship, Kofi Annan, High Protector of all that the internationist/socialist left holds dear, no one dares raise a peep.
Let me guess: the only thing he got as a gift is his puppy-dog. Named Checkers. And does his wife wear a Republican cloth coat? I’m sure he’s not a crook.
G*d, this guy disgusts me. Remember that he came to prominence in Ghana under the regime of Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings, who had his predecessors shot when his third coup succeeded. If we must rotate the Secretary General position among the continents, how about Chilly Willy from Antarctica next? A cartoon penguin would be a great improvement.
Funny, they’re a lot alike–Chilly Willy fixated on finding some warmth, Kofi Annan fixated on finding some Moola.