Condi pressed on her hypocrisy, in interview after interview

[Cocoa]

in the Arab media, that is...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8307367/site/newsweek/page/2/


At every stop on her Mideast tour this week Rice has had to dance diplomatically through a minefield of half-hidden hypocrisies. In her Cairo speech she declared that “democracy is never imposed,” and that the United States wants to project its goals with “humility.” But she then followed with a catalogue of what Arab governments “must” do and declared flatly, “Democracy is the ideal path for every nation.”

Not surprisingly, in interview after interview, Rice has been challenged for pursuing “double standards” on the kind of democratic success the administration wants to see, as one Arab TV correspondent put it Monday. Washington is insisting that Mubarak change his nation’s laws to permit opposition groups into his September election. But in a gift to Mubarak, Rice declared on Monday that America will have no contacts with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, probably the most popular opposition group in Egypt and one that says it has renounced terrorism and embraced free elections and universal suffrage. The reason, she indicated, is that Mubarak, who has ruled under martial law, has a law on the books banning the group.

Why is this particular law sacrosanct when at the same time Washington is asking the Egyptians to change their entire constitution? When asked, Rice refused to say. But the administration has been leery of supporting any group that, like the Brotherhood, seeks to establish an Islamic state, whether in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon or the Palestinian territories, even though they are sometimes the most popular organizations. And her dismissal of the Muslim Brotherhood did not resonate well with an audience that also heard her declare, “It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy.”

Rice dismisses the idea that the administration is slow-rolling its democracy push for friendly regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia while being much tougher on hostile regimes like Iran and Syria. “We have had pretty muscular language, I think,” she said today. But as she well knows, it will take far more than words to shape history’s verdict of George W. Bush.

[grannylib]

1. I was wondering what you were talking about! Naturally, had to be

foreign press...no Reich-wing media whore would dare to do that in THIS country.
Hey! I wonder if we should send a copy of the Constitution (or at least the First Amendment) to the corporate media! Maybe they don't know! Maybe they forgot!

Or maybe they're just greedy, power-and-money-hungry bastards, just like the current, unelected mis-administration.

[donco6]

2. Have we seen a report of Condi's interviews overseas?

Nah. Why would we want to see that when we can see the latest update on the Runaway Bride?

(Disgusted)

[ailsagirl]

3. Heavens, is her integrity being impugned once again??

Poor Condi :nopity:

[fla nocount]

4. Democracy? Goverment by, for and of the People?

What would she know about that?