Posted on 02/25/2011 10:50:02 PM PST by Ooh-Ah
When President Obama made Susan Rice his ambassador to the United Nations, in 2009, he thought the job was so vital that he gave her cabinet rank. Now, here we are, with the Arab world in tumult, two dictators gone in the past two months, and the UN aflutter over scenes of Libyans dying this past week by the hundreds, or thousands, in outright rebellion against a raving Moammar Qaddafi — who has been vowing to “fight to the last drop of blood.” Qaddafi’s atrocities are so visibly horrific that the UN Security Council has been meeting on Libya in emergency session. In Geneva, the Human Rights Council interrupted its usual anti-Israel programming to hold its own emergency session on Friday, and engage in the novel activity of demanding the suspension of Libya from its ranks, and a probe into Qaddafi’s abuses in Libya. Even Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon cut short a UN public relations recruiting trip to Hollywood early this week, in order to phone Qaddafi and dash back to New York.
Where’s Susan Rice, the cabinet rank ambassador of the free world’s superpower? On the day Hosni Mubarak stepped down as dictator of Egypt, Feb. 11, she was visiting Oregon to give a talk on “Why America Needs the United Nations.” This week, as Libyans escalated their uprising against more than 41 years of Qaddafi’s totalitarian, terror-based reign, Rice sent her deputy to an emergency Security Council meeting on Libya on Tuesday, and took off for a two-day meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
What was so urgent about this this meeting in Cape Town? Did it have anything to do with the droves of Libyan diplomats, from New York to Geneva to Cairo, now renouncing the Qaddafi regime? Did it have anything to do with the warning of Libya’s deputy ambassador to the UN, that Qaddafi, with his threats of house-to-house assaults, was launching a genocide against Libyans who defied him? Did it have anything to do with mass rebellion roiling North Africa and the Middle East, and sending tremors as far as China and North Korea?
Nope. This was a two-day meeting of — what else? — the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability. As a press release from the U.S. Mission to the UN explains it — (please take a deep breath and try to stay awake for this) — the mission of this 21-member panel, formed last summer by Ban Ki-Moon, is to “provide the Secretary-General with a final report by 2012 that will focus on practical solutions for putting countries on a sustainable path toward long-term growth and development.” Panelists include the president of the World Meteorological Organization, Russia’s Alexander Bedritsky; Switzerland’s Ahmadinejad-lovin’ foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey; and the woman who is perhaps the most sustained retread of every UN meeting on “sustainability,” going back to the early 1980s, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland. This is precisely the kind of crowd that’s been telling us all to cut back on jet travel in order to reduce carbon emissions, and one might suppose they’d have applauded a decision by Rice to videoconference in from New York, and spend the rest of her time on Libya. Apparently there were other priorities.
Last Sunday, before embarking on her trip to South Africa, Ambassador Rice turned up on Meet the Press, to note that the U.S. administration had condemned attacks on civilians in Libya, and comment, before she took off, that despite the murder of protesters in Libya’s second-largest city of Benghazi, “There has been less violence, very little so far in Tripoli.” Before the returning Rice outdoes the clueless Director of National Intelligence, Eric Clapper, maybe someone should brief her that for both the UN and Libya — where Tripoli, the redoubt of a fist-waving Qaddafi, has become a place of gunfire and slaughter — it’s been a busy week. Maybe someone should also brief President Obama that it’s time for a new ambassador to the UN.
Not ready fo’ prime time.
Susan Rice always struck me as clueless, self-absorbed, and under-qualified to speak on any major issues. In other words, a perfect fit for this “administration.”
Claudia Rosett, an excellent reporter and writer. It appears that Ms Rice actually works for the UN as their ambassador. Whose paying her salary?
Sometimes I wonder if the UN isn’t our shadow/parallel government.
> Qaddafi’s atrocities are so visibly horrific that the UN
> Security Council has been meeting on Libya in emergency
> session.
No way! I mean, after all, Lybia is on the UN Human Rights commission, right?
I think shw was pissed that she didn’t get Hillary’s job and demanded Cabinet Rank so she wouldn’t have to report to Hillary.
Belmont Club discusses this.
Her resume is so sweet it’s sickening, like ingesting a jar of honey. Definitely a diligent employee of commuphate, inc.
She probably just follows orders, of which there are few, apparently.
Susan Rice is yet one more Chicago thug loser. The days of competency are gone my friends.
Susan Rice exemplifies our current top-to-bottom affirmative action government, and she is achieving, effectively, results that one would similarly expect from an affirmative action surgeon.
She’s still ticked Obama didn’t let her vote against Israel in the Security Counsel earlier this week. She’s a rabid anti-semite.
No heavy lifting for ANY of these Democrats!!! PARTY!!! PARTY!!!! PARTY!! is all they know how to do!!
Another feckless affirmative action hire, just like her boss.
And worse: the media doesn’t cover this at all.
Susan, like her boss, misses the 3 and while we’re at it, the 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1 and 2:00 O’Clock call. Totally in over her head.
Honestly ,before I read this I couldn’t have told you who was the UN’s Ambassador.
She has been very stealthy there.
I would bet not one in 30 Americans could name her.
“Susan Rice is yet one more Chicago thug loser. The days of competency are gone my friends.”
For liberals, competency isn’t a requirement. Only ideological loyalty is. For every cabinet position, every Czar, every position of global importantance, and the Supreme Court, Obama appointed an ideologue who will further a leftwing agenda. This instead of a competent person who would look after the interests of the country.
Most divisive President ever. It is bad when Carter is the second worst President ever.
Mike
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