Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Politics of Genocide

Andrew Sullivan is on vacation, but he left his blog in good hands. This is a useful look at the McCain campaign's clumsy and dishonest statement about Obama's visit to Yad Vashem.

It seems to me that Obama is one of the last politicians you'd want to attack when it comes to genocide. In addition to having earned a solid reputation of being a strong advocate for ignored human rights crises, he's got one of the top authorities on genocide and U.S. foreign policy, Samantha Power, among his top advisers. (By the way, Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide and U.S. foreign policy is a must-read.) If you're a political news junkie, you'll recall that Professor Power resigned from the campaign after making some controversial remarks about Senator Clinton. Politics might keep her out of the spotlight for a while, but she's an absolutely brilliant and essential voice among U.S. foreign policy experts, and I doubt she's very far removed from the campaign today - even if her role is slightly less public for the time being.

But I digress. How about that statement?

No comments: