"Do you have any idea what he means by "criminals" turning "a Nobel Peace prize winner into a useful idiot," and making "a useful idiot of a priest"?
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uribe used the word "criminals" (plural) but he was specifically referring to former Colombian poice major Juan Carlos Meneses, who gave the interview to Juan Forero of the Washington Post about uribe's brother Santiago and his "12 Apostles" paramilitary group.
Later will search for reaction by Noble winner perez-esquibel and padre javier jiraldo. There might be something in the Argentine press. Have seen no reaction to uribito's outburst in the Washington Post. Oh, the El Tiempo article that reported uribito's remarks was scrubbed from the online version yesterday evening after being up for most of the day.
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You have wondered whether uribe is being dumped. I would say he is being noriega-ed, diem-ed, or shah-of-iran-ed. uribe is so incredibly dirty that even Obama probably does not want to have anything to do with him. (btw, Hil is scheduled to be in Bogota on June 8-9, right in the midst of a possible second-round presidential runoff. Why? I don't know yet.)
In recent months it is as if a manhole cover has been removed and all the sewer stench has been released of massive government corruption, the paramilitary massacres, DAS-gate, Yidispolitics (bribery to congress members to allow uribe's re-election in 2006), false positives, the unrest in the military and on and on. There will be much more to come before and after Aug. 7 when uribito leaves the palace.
Here is an article by a Colombian journalist that I saw last night, related to the Washington Post and Huffington Post.
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~~~~~~~snip~~~~~
Since Alvaro Uribe was elected president in 2002, he has counted on the virtually unconditional support of the American government. For the most part, the American media has been similarly favorable to Mr. Uribe. Most American news reports on Colombia have focused on Uribe’s notable successes, such as the liberation of the FARC guerrilla’s most prominent hostages, including three Americans, in 2008. By contrast, the president’s newsworthy shortcomings, namely his inability to stem human rights abuses and corruption in Colombia, have gone largely unreported in the American press. Despite Uribe’s staunch conservatism and hard-line security policies, even the U.S.’s leading liberal newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times, have been quite kind to the president. Both papers generally support, for example, the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, which many human rights and labor groups oppose partly because of continued violence against union leaders during Uribe’s eight years in office.
~~~~~~~snip~~~~~~
It was therefore surprising that, this week, two prominent American media outlets – the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, a liberal online newspaper – published pieces that directly attacked the integrity of the outgoing president’s government and family.
~~~~~~~snip~~~~~~~~
The timing of this negative press, especially the Washington Post article, is obviously meant to roughly coincide with Colombia’s upcoming elections. But why are media outlets that previously paid very little attention to political, security and human rights problems in Colombia suddenly changing their tone now and not at previous political crossroads such as 2006 Colombian elections or the 2008 American elections.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~snip~~~~~~~~~
On the Huffington Post website, which has an explicit liberal stance but which had previously reported only rarely on Colombia, American human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik published an opinion piece that suggested links between the Colombian Embassy in Washington and recent paramilitary death threats sent to American NGOs.
Full article
http://colombiareports.com/opinion/the-colombiamerican/9945-us-media-turns-on-uribe-is-mockus-hurting-the-presidents-image.html 
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