President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of indulging terrorists, just hours after a Chechen warlord claimed responsibility for a wave of deadly attacks in Russia and threatened more.

"A patronising and indulgent attitude to the murderers amounts to complicity in terror," Putin said on Friday, widening a rift between Russia and the West over how to deal with Chechen rebel violence.

[edit]

"We have long warned about the threat of terrorist attacks, but our voice has not been heard," Putin told an international meeting of city mayors.

"Moreover, we faced double standards in the attitude towards terrorism," he said, repeating charges the West has been two-faced by giving asylum to top Chechens and urging Moscow to negotiate with rebel leaders but rejecting the possibility of dialogue with Osama bin Laden.

"It's hard for me not to hate Bill Clinton," he says, during an outing in the Cadillac, "and I've had to work hard on it." When Clinton's name comes up, DeLay gets so agitated that both hands briefly leave the steering wheel as he gestures and shakes his head vigorously. "The hardest thing for me is to love my enemies."

Demonstrators found themselves shouted down and knocked to the ground during a rally for President Clinton.

On the fringes of the huge crowd gathered Sunday to give Clinton a sendoff to the Democratic National Convention were abortion protesters, tobacco workers and Bob Dole supporters who hoped to have their say.

Not all of them got the chance.

Phil Parlock of Huntington said he was knocked to the ground by a Clinton supporter when he tried to display a sign that read "Remember Vince Foster," the deputy White House counsel who committed suicide in a Washington, D.C., park. His death has become the subject of much debate among Clinton opponents.

"It must have been a strict Democrat who did this," Parlock said, feeling the sweaty red abrasions on his face. "Everyone with the exception of him was real peaceful about our protest."

While others didn't threaten protesters, Parlock said they tried to make them feel unwelcome. He estimated that about 150 Dole supporters attended the rally, but much of the time their signs couldn't be seen.

"I came to show that not everyone from Huntington is going to vote for Clinton," Parlock said.

Phil Parlock didn't expect to need all 12 of the Bush-Cheney signs he and his son Louis smuggled in their socks and pockets into the rally for Vice President Al Gore. But each time they raised a sign, someone would grab it out of their hands, the two Huntington residents said. And sometimes it got physical.

"I expected some people to take our signs," said Louis, 12. "But I did not expect people to practically attack us."

[edit]

Parlock, a real estate agent, thought it would be at least as educational for his son to spend the morning at the Gore rally as it would have been to spend the day at school. So the two got in the car and drove from Huntington, arriving in Charleston about 9 a.m.

Parlock said he was a volunteer for the Bush-Cheney campaign. He is listed on the West Virginia Bush-Cheney Web site as the Cabell County contact for the campaign.

[edit]

As workers cleaned up the debris from the rally in front of the Capitol after the rally, Parlock sat next to a pile of ripped up Bush-Cheney signs he had collected. He said he thought the people who took his signs went too far.

Still, he said he'd do it again.

Via Doctors Without Borders


Via CARE

"We're making progress on the ground."

Gunmen kidnapped two Americans and a Briton from a house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood at dawn Thursday, a brazen attack that brought to eight the number of Western civilians held hostage in Iraq.

... U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Wednesday that he feared the continued insecurity in Iraq -- including a surge in attacks that has killed more than 200 people since last weekend -- would block elections slated for January.

It is time that we amend the constitution to remove an archaic provision that was originally designed to keep the nobility of foreign countries from meddling in American democracy.

"I'll admit, there's a certain sadistic quality to such overwrought decency toward Dan Rather. But how does Bill O'Reilly know what Dan Rather was thinking when he put forged documents on the air? I know liberals have the paranormal ability to detect racism and sexism, but who knew O'Reilly could read an anchorman's mind just by watching him read the news?"

"[W]hen 'no spin'-meister Bill O'Reilly chose to weigh in, it wasn't what you might have expected--namely, Bill didn't blast the elites at Viacom who are allowing the story to fester due their failure to take responsibility for the fishy documents. Instead, O'Reilly took the occasion to blast 'right wing conservative talk show hosts' for pushing the story of the memos. 'Because of the internet, everything has changed," he lamented, 'It's just nuts.'"

China is threatening to veto a revised U.S. draft resolution that would consider U.N. sanctions against Sudan's oil industry if Khartoum does not rein in marauding militia fighters in its Darfur region, diplomats reported on Wednesday.

Pakistan and Algeria also oppose the new U.N. Security Council draft and Russia and Brazil have some objections, the envoys said after initial negotiations. European nations back the resolution.

Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram said he opposed the sanctions threat and a ban on Khartoum's military planes flying over Darfur. "We think it's premature at best," he told reporters. "Let's not have empty threats or threats that would make a lot of people die."

Russia's Ambassador, Andrei Denisov, said Moscow had not made a final decision, but "we don't like it." He particularly mentioned the sanctions threat and questioned the need for enhanced Africa Union monitors.

We went to the so-called model camp, which Secretary Powell and Kofi Annan went to. And that was hellish. And then we went to a non-model camp and it was even worse.

The fault in the record is the IJ's failure to address whether any public official might have been "aware[ ] of such activity and thereafter breach[ed] his or her legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity."

"If the documents are more of an embarrassment than a secret, the public should know of our government's treatment of individuals captured and held abroad."

The latest hero in the Judicial Independence Parade (right behind the Fourth Circuit) is Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.

Hellerstein was ruling in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case "seeking information from federal agencies on the treatment and deaths of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of detainees to countries known to employ torture or other illegal interrogation methods."

Just like the Fourth Circuit, Judge Hellerstein understood the magnitude of the national security issues at stake in releasing information. But also like the Fourth Circuit, he cut to the heart of the matter: the American government can't cut (usually) cut off your rights simply by asserting national security without any judicial review.

Hence the quotation that heads this post, which really should be the title of a book about the Bush Administration's pathological secrecy. This is the l'etat, c'est moi administration: it routinely conflates political damage to George Bush with security damage to the nation. If it's embarrassing, it's classified or secret. See, e.g., Bush's failure to release White House records from the Reagan era (including the records of V.P. George H.W. Bush) as required by law, the Energy Task Force litigation, etc.

Judge Hellerstein also rebuked the government for what an earlier administration would have called "stonewalling."

"As of today, eleven months [after the FOIA request], with small exception, no documents have been produced by defendant; no documents have been identified; no exemptions have been claimed; and no objections have been stated," Hellerstein said in his opinion, which followed a Sept. 10 hearing on how to proceed.

[snip]

At the hearing, the government suggested it provide the documents on a rolling basis, with completion some time next year.

[snip]

Hellerstein noted that Congress has recognized the difficulty of always meeting FOIA's requirement that government agencies process requests within 20 days. But Congress has also recognized that "delay in complying with FOIA requests may be 'tantamount to denial,'" the judge noted.

Conservatives are now trying to insulate all sorts of government actions from judicial review, in the name of curbing "judicial activism." But given the natural tendency of power to corrupt, and the dangers our Founders rightly saw in letting one branch collect too much power without checks from the others, we should be thankful that we have a judiciary that makes the government follow the law.

TONY JONES: And the ABC's foreign affairs editor Peter Cave joins us now from Baghdad. . . . [A]re you starting to get the sense when you speak to US military officers in Baghdad that they're beginning to despair of ever getting a handle on this?

PETER CAVE: Look, you don't speak to American military officers as much as you used to. They're very fast when they move through town. They don't speak to you. The daily press briefings aren't happening.

You know, they have coming under daily attack. I was out at a car bombing where a couple of soldiers were critically injured in a car bomb attack the other day. The Americans are very much under siege.

JONES: Peter, we'll come to the still unresolved question of whether there are or are not any Australian hostages in a moment, but first, we've just seen some extraordinary pictures, another of bloodiest days since the war, is there a sense there that the security situation is simply deteriorating?

CAVE: It certainly is. We're seeing kidnappings in the centre of Baghdad that we haven't seen the like of before. 30 armed men coming in and pulling those two Italian women and a couple of Iraqis out of their house. . . . [O]ver the weekend on Sunday, we had five car bombs in and around Baghdad, 13 or 14 rockets and mortars rained down on the green zone and one of them landed at a building behind my here as a matter of fact. Today we've had that huge car bomb that you saw. There was another one outside the planning ministry. It didn't achieve its aim. Only the driver of that car was killed. And just in the last little while there's been another attack in central Baghdad, a roadside bomb which struck a column of three four-wheel drive vehicles, completely destroying one of them. The other two managed to escape. Not sure at this stage how many people died there.

So certainly the temperature is hotting up.

"The bottom line is you get a catch in the end zone that some people think was out of bounds, and you get a win in the NFL," Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer said. "That's why it's the most popular sport in the world."

The game was delayed by an electricity outage at Reliant Stadium -- which is named for a power company.

... as the new school year gets under way, the burden on Seelig and other teachers around the country is even heavier. Because of a budget crunch, California has suspended a tax credit that reimbursed teachers up to $1,500 for classroom supplies. Meanwhile, a $250 federal tax deduction for teachers that helped defray out-of-pocket spending expired this year.

... Teachers around the country often reach into their own pockets to buy school supplies for themselves or their students, either because the school system does not provide the money, or because they feel sorry for youngsters from poor homes who come to school without the things they need.

Ann in DC with Miguel Estrada on the right (literally).

With all due respect, this is not accounting. ... you didn't write any dates, and many of the items are vague.

... Loans amounted to $2,190. Why did you give out loans? Didn't I give clear orders to Muhammed Saleh to ... refer any loan requests to me? We have already had long discussions on this topic ...

Why did you buy a new fax for $470? Where are the two old faxes? Did you get permission before buying a new fax under such circumstances?

... I pray to God [who] granted you success in destroying the dead, deaf, and mute false gods ...

Concerning the operations of the blessed Tuesday (Sept. 11) ... they are legally legitimate, because they are committed against a country at war with us ... Someone might say that it is the innocent, the elderly, the women, and the children who are victims, so how can these operations be legitimate according to [Islamic law]? And we say that the sanctity of women, children, and the elderly is not absolute.

... In killing Americans who are ordinarily off limits, Muslims should not exceed four million non-combatants, or render more than ten million of them homeless. We should avoid this, to make sure the penalty [that we are inflicting] is no more than reciprocal. God knows what is best.

Dear friends,

As you may know, I have filed a lawsuit in relation to Memogate. The Complaint is linked below. The short of it is that what the Judiciary Committee did to me and my family was grossly unfair and disproportionate, and an abuse of power.

The suit takes aim at the canards that the Democratic Senators used to distract Republicans and the press from their own wrongdoing, i.e. that their documents were not "confidential," especially when disclosed through their own negligence.

[edit]

At this point we need your help. I need your financial support. Below you can make a contribution through Pay Pal directly into the Miranda Fund account.

No contribution is too small and no large contribution is too large. I may not bother you again until I run for a Senate seat.

The United States softened its threat of oil sanctions against Sudan on Tuesday to try to get Security Council approval for a resolution pressuring Khartoum to rein in Arab militias accused of attacking civilians in western Darfur.

The revised U.S. resolution, circulated to council members and obtained by The Associated Press, still raises the possibility of punitive diplomatic and economic measures against Sudan, particularly against its oil industry, if the government doesn't act quickly against the militias, known as the Janjaweed.

The original U.S. resolution introduced last week - which China threatened to veto - declared that the Security Council "will take further actions" against the government if it doesn't comply with UN resolutions. The revised text declares that the council "shall consider taking additional measures."

While the genocide finding had little legal import, U.S. officials hoped it would erode opposition to their push for sanctions and spur Sudan to stem the violence that the United Nations estimates has driven 1.2 million from their homes and killed as many as 50,000.

What must we conclude about Powell's testimony? Ultimately he appears to be using the potency of the term genocide without any commitment to the moral obligations entailed in a finding of genocide. In trying to have it both ways, he produces only incoherence, captured in a single page of transcript: Powell first declares that "the government of Sudan bears responsibility [for the genocide in Darfur]," and then observes that "Sudan is a contracting party to the Genocide Convention and is obliged under the convention to prevent and to punish acts of genocide."

How likely is it that the genocidaires will punish themselves? and prevent a continuation of their own clearly designed policies for human displacement and destruction in Darfur? This is hopelessly illogical and reflects a desire to threaten while at the same time, out of impotence and desperate hope, encourage Khartoum. But when the issue is genocide, this is simply moral madness.

We are presented with questions of grave significance--questions that test the commitment of this nation to an independent judiciary, to the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial even to one accused of the most heinous of crimes, and to the protection of citizens against additional terrorist attacks. These questions do not admit of easy answers.

This latest ad from Moveon PAC is about as misleading as it can be. ... it invites viewers to think that the expiration of the ban on 19 semiautomatic assault weapons will allow people legally to buy fully automatic machine guns that can fire "up to 300 rounds per minute." That's false. It has been illegal to buy a machine gun without federal clearance since 1934, and remains so.

The (MoveOn.org) ad also claims that Bush "will let the assault weapon ban expire," which is misleading. In fact, Bush spoke in support of the ban during his campaign four years ago and his spokesman said as recently as May of last year that he still supported it. It was Congress that failed to consider extending the ban and didn't present Bush with a bill to sign.

That's an opinion, of course. And indeed, we could find no instance of Bush himself even mentioning the assault weapons ban in his official appearances as President. Furthermore, when pressed repeatedly by a reporter Sept. 13, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan would not cite the name of a single member of Congress that Bush had called to ask that the ban be extended.

The President as Homecoming King

The best way to think of the Bush presidency is that the United States is in the process of transitioning from the president as policy leader to the president as homecoming king. The metamorphous began under Reagan, is fueled by the modern media, and is being perfected by Bush. The main responsibilities of the president as homecoming king is to cheer lustily for our team. In every way, the president must communicate that our nation is number one (whatever that means), has no serious flaws, and is capable of overcoming any obstacle. Bush does this well. Kerry rather poorly.

Consider how recent events highlight the presidency as homecoming king. Only partisan Democrats care that Bush used family connections to limit service during Vietnam. Past achievement, after all, is a qualification of the presidency envisioned by the Framers. The homecoming king must be well liked, but need not have a record of any achievement...The homecoming king never acknowledges that our team has any faults (or what faults exist are to be blamed on a few individuals).

Bush fell from grace only once during the campaign, when he indicated that the war on terrorism could not be won. Had we been in the era of the Roosevelt presidency, a sensible debate might have followed on how terrorism could best be contained over the long run. As we move to the era of the president as homecoming king, such statements must be recanted. Presidents must assert that our team will fully triumph over all foes. No nuance is permitted in public. That everybody knows such triumphs are utopian matters not in the least.

As a fan of high school and college football, I like homecoming kings and queens as much as the next person. A reasonable case can be made that they serve national purposes. Witness the English monarchy. But England also has a prime minister, who acts as a Rooseveltian policy leader. Elections are more about policy than popularity. The greatest danger in the presidency as homecoming king is that public debate over policy in the United States is rapidly being reduced to who can cheer the loudest for the home team.

I respect President Putin's vision for Russia ... a country in which democracy and freedom and rule of law thrive.

Mr. Putin proposed (yesterday) a significant political restructuring that would eliminate direct elections for Russia's 89 regional governors -- who instead would be designated by the president and confirmed by local legislatures -- and change the way parliament is formed.

If approved, the measures would be the most far-reaching constitutional changes since Mr. Putin became president more than four years ago, and the latest sign of the Kremlin's steady centralization of political control.

... [A senior U.S. official] expressed dismay about what appeared to be a new assault on Russian democracy. But he added that the U.S. isn't interested in picking a public fight with the thin-skinned Russian Leader ... So far, the U.S. has offered only muted criticisms as the Russian leader has wielded an increasingly authoritarian hand.

"This would be like Bush saying after Sept. 11 that from now on, governors will be elected by state assemblies rather than by the people."

RUMSFELD: “Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press … They have their jobs and you have yours.”

“Calling coverage of the (Iraq) war ‘absolutely shocking,’ Rumsfeld blamed the media for tarnishing the image of the United States.” (GOP-USA website, 2-7-04)

* * * * * * * * * *

RUMSFELD: “Don’t divide the world into ‘them’ and ‘us.’”

“You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe." (Rumsfeld remarks, 1-22-03)

* * * * * * * * * *

RUMSFELD: “If you foul up, tell the president and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.”

“Asked when he first told the president about the reports of torture (at Abu Ghraib), Rumsfeld replied, ‘I don't know.’ … Even now, the secretary seems to miss the point. He appears to think the issue is not the torture but the photographs. He didn't tell the president because, as he put it, ‘The problem at that point was one-dimensional. It wasn't three-dimensional. It wasn't photographs and video.’” (Fred Kaplan, Slate, 5-7-04)

* * * * * * * * * *

RUMSFELD: “Don’t do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of the Washington Post.”

“My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough? Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. … The cost-benefit ratio is against us!" (Rumsfeld memo, which became front page news in The Post, memo dated 10-16-03)

New York issued eight walks and hit a batter, as seven of those nine baserunners came around to score. Two runs came in on wild pitches, while yet another scored on a balk.

If frogs are seen in the streets of New York and the delegates start breaking out in boils, I would strongly advise all first-born sons to get out of town FAST.

Both Candidates Often Shift Positions

While working relentlessly to portray Democratic Sen. John Kerry as a "flip-flopper," President Bush has his own history of changing his position, from reversals on steel tariffs and "nation-building" to reasons for invading Iraq.

Republicans have been driving home their depiction of Kerry as a flip-flopper for months, in campaign ads, speeches and interviews. And polls suggest this line of attack is working.

Far more voters give Bush high marks for being decisive than they do Kerry. Three-fourths, 75 percent, in the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll said the president is decisive, up 7 percentage points from August, while 37 percent said Kerry is decisive, down 7 percentage points from a month ago.

The assault-weapons ban, passed 10 years ago to prohibit the sale of some firearms, will end next week, and Congress will not move to extend it.

"It will expire Monday, and that's that," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, told reporters yesterday.

Some police chiefs were in Washington yesterday to lobby for extending the ban, but did not sway congressional leaders, who said there is no room on the schedule. In addition to Mr. DeLay, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said the Senate would not consider a renewal.

"I think the will of the American people is consistent with letting it expire, so it will expire," Mr. Frist said.

Respondents were asked: Do you favor or oppose extending the federal law banning assault weapons?

Total
68% Favor - 28% Oppose

Men
65% Favor - 32% Oppose

Women
71% Favor - 24% Oppose

Whites
68% Favor - 28% Oppose

African Americans
67% Favor - 29% Oppose

Latinos
75% Favor - 23% Oppose

Northeast
73% Favor - 23% Oppose

Midwest
66% Favor - 29% Oppose

South
67% Favor - 28% Oppose

West
67% Favor - 29% Oppose

Urban
69% Favor - 6% Oppose

Suburban
71% Favor - 26% Oppose

Rural
61% Favor - 33% Oppose

Republican
61% Favor - 34% Oppose

Democrat
73% Favor - 23% Oppose

Independent
69% Favor - 27% Oppose

Conservative
62% Favor - 33% Oppose

Moderate
70% Favor - 26% Oppose

Liberal
75% Favor - 22% Oppose

NRA member
32% Favor - 63% Oppose

... if Colorado moves alone to proportional allocation, [Mr. Owens] insists, it would in effect make the state less powerful by reducing the stakes of presidential competition here to the one or two electoral votes that could change hands depending on the popular vote results.

Mr. Owens says that would dramatically reduce the incentive for presidential candidates to court Colorado, leaving the state vulnerable later when the occupant of the White House weighs decisions on matters such as closing military bases or storing nuclear waste.

The answer to these questions is not only no, but it's HELL NO!

Telling Americans the uncomfortable truth about their government has angered Democratic presidents, Republican Speakers, and party bosses of all stripes for as long as I can recall. But this truth-telling approach I’ve adopted was responsible for getting an unknown thirty-one-year-old elected to Congress in a Florida district that had not sent a Republican to the House of Representatives in more than a hundred years. And it was that same straight-talking style that got me re-elected in landslide elections three times. But my methods did little to endear me to party bosses or committee chairmen ..."

Culturally part of Dixie, this area was economically dependent in the 1940s and 1950s on the military bases for growth. Even today almost 14,000 people are employed at Eglin Air Force Base, which spreads over three counties ...

[The 1st district's] cultural conservatism has remained ingrained from that earlier era, and it has become economically more conservative as well, while militarily it is supportive of assertive American policies around the world. The 1st District stretches from Pensacola and the Alabama border east to include part of Walton, Holmes, and Washington Counties. Politically, this is Republican territory. It voted solidly against Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 ... the Panhandle and Cuban-American parts of Miami-Dade County, separated by 800 miles, are the two most Republican parts of Florida."

As I write, only ten days later, I cannot construct a linear narrative of my memories. They intrude randomly into my days and nights as disconnected images, noises, and smells. The fragments that force their way into my thoughts are so preposterous that they cannot be part of anything that I would consider reality. Yet someday in a classroom somewhere, my great-grandchildren will find the events of September 11 no more remarkable than the Diet of Worms or the Battle of Agincourt. So I set down a few glimpses of recent life in lower Manhattan in the hope that someone else will find them more comprehensible than I do.

• In the gym where my three-year-old twins have gymnastics class, watching the North Tower burn, turning to see the girls running and laughing with their friends, then turning back to see only a rising cloud of smoke and dust where the tower had been.
  
  
• Walking among the fleeing masses, noticing a Sikh gentleman, and worrying that someone whose anti-Muslim bigotry was matched only by his ignorance would see the turban and attack; a week later, reading about the Arizona man who killed a Sikh gas station owner and proclaiming that he did it because he is a "proud American."
  
  
• A particularly Greenwich Village form of mourning: a shirtless young man striding purposefully down the middle of the car-free, sealed-off street, his left nipple pierced, wearing a black armband on his bare arm.
  
  
• Hearing on television that [our building] was about to collapse and rushing up to the roof of my [apartment] building to watch it go.
  
  
• The girls, playing in the Washington Square sandbox and explaining that "the building fell down because an airplane crashed into it because they weren't looking where they were going, so we're fixing the building back up."
  
  
• Admiring Mayor Giuliani.
  
  
• A pastor disclosing the death of the girls' Sunday school teacher moments before praying that America "not return evil for evil," and a church more packed than on Easter bursting into applause.

The fragment that shakes me the most, though, started on my answering machine. An unfamiliar voice said, "I'm looking for Mary Ann [California], who worked in Two World Trade Center. If you know anything about her, please call me." I called the woman back and as gently as possible told her that I was not related to Mary Ann [California] and knew nothing about her. She worked, as it turns out, for Morgan Stanley. For how long had we worked across the street from each other, sharing a name, perhaps sitting next to each other on the subway, and never knowing each other? And now one of us was dead and the other alive. If anyone can make sense of that, please let me know.

For President Bush Why don't you turn up the heat on Sudan? How about consulting urgently with the leaders of our allies about how to exert more pressure on Sudan? How about inviting victims to the White House and denouncing the genocide from the Rose Garden? How about threatening a no-flight zone in Darfur unless Sudan cooperates?

For France and Germany I sympathized with your opposition to the war in Iraq. But are you really now so petty and anti-Bush that you refuse to stand with the U.S. against the slaughter in Darfur, or even to contribute significant sums to ease the suffering?

Does the Chirac government really want to show the moral blindness to Sudan's genocide that the Vichy regime did to Hitler's?

For the Islamic world You're absolutely right to hold Israel's feet to the fire over its often brutal treatment of Palestinians, but why don't you also care about dead Sudanese? In August, according to a human rights monitoring group, Israel killed 42 Palestinians, including fighters. In the same period, according to the World Health Organization, more than 10,000 people died in Darfur - virtually all of them Muslim.

Islamic Relief is doing an excellent job, but the Muslim victims of Darfur are getting far more help from Jewish and Christian aid groups than from Islamic charities.

For the United Nations Agencies like the U.N. World Food Program are working heroically to keep the victims alive, but the U.N. as a whole has failed to respond to Sudanese atrocities. Mostly that's because of the failure of member states, but I'm afraid that some of the responsibility has to be charged to a man I like and respect: Kofi Annan.

I hate to say it, but the way things are going, when he dies his obituary will begin: "Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary general who at various points in his career presided ineffectually over the failure to stop genocide, first in Rwanda and then in Sudan, died today. "