"This attempted end-run around American democracy"

Peace on earth.  Not.  Laurence Simon's feline allies Piper (left) and Nardo demonstrate the way of the world in a Kabuki-like test of wills.  Note each pussycat's "mie, in which the actor holds a picturesque pose to establish his character."

You've no doubt caught Jan Egeland's ankle-biting trashing of his betters for being "stingy" with relief funds for tsunami victims:

"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become" . . . adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."

"Ve Haf Vays"

"Well, I felt like the person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed," said President Bush of international progressivist Jan Egeland (above). Understatement of the year.

There's a whole subculture out there now discussing the fine points of who gave how much, when and why.  MSM types seem to be running with the fashionable meme that GW wasn't going to give much until he was hounded/shamed into upping the ante by "transnational progressivists" like Egeland and his media allies. You remember the transnational progressivists, as described by Daniel Pipes in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom:

In recent decades, the "progressivism" rejected by America's democratic institutions -- the executive branch, Congress, the courts, state and local governments -- has been gaining at the United Nations and other undemocratic international institutions. And many Western elites -- even more so in Europe than here -- have so internalized this change that they now see the United Nations & Co. as more legitimate on these issues.

This attempted end-run around American democracy, Fonte argues, represents a significant movement, which he dubs "transnational progressivism." I prefer the name "bureaucratic leftism," but whatever one calls it, Fonte establishes that, in the tradition of fascism and communism, this effort constitutes a significant "challenge to liberal democracy."

Our gut had told us there was something unwholesome about this Egeland fellow when we read his words and then caught his body language on C-Span. He is intellectually superior to the rest of us and knows better than we do what is best for us.

Comments

[goomp]

Egeland: my candidate for "Intellectual Moron of the Year."

[Jack]

Egeland is a load. However, we need to cut the Scandinavians a bit of a break on this one. As a proportion of population, the Danes and the Norwegians may have suffered truly staggering losses in the tsunami. If the United States had as great a proportion of missing (and therefore possibly or probably dead) people as the Danes, we would have lost 24,000 people. The comparable number for Norway, which is missing 460 people in South Asia, is 30,000. Proportionately, these are massive losses, so I can't say that I do not have sympathy for Scandinavia right now.