Either The New York Times editorial board mistakenly thought it was April 1st or they’ve reached another historic level of reification with their apologia pro vita Kofi editorial yesterday, trying to fob off the blame for Oil-for-Food and attendant problems on the USA.
They accuse “conservatives” as having been behind the attacks on Annan but maybe they are the conservatives – if you define conservative as being hidebound and traditionalist, unable to alter your views one centimeter from where they have been for the last fifty years. This isn’t about liberal or conservative (however you define those increasingly inverted terms) but about grand theft at unprecedented numbers subverting the stated intentions of the United Nations Security Council. It’s about a charitable program that was turned on its head to benefit not just Saddam, but literally hundreds of companies and member states, touching thousands of corrupt individuals. (The Times is setting up Benan Sevan as the fall guy when the problem is systemic.) I thought that was obvious, but apparently not to the Times. I could go on, but this blogger has already said it all.
The more interesting question for me is why the Times, representing a large number of people and institutions, refuses to be future-oriented and clings to the 1968 weltanschauung as if it were their only life raft in an increasingly turbulent sea. Is this merely generational hardening of the arteries or is there something more? It might help them to see that they have become hopelessly square.
MEANWHILE: Arthur Chrenkoff is hip.
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