With Pinochet now in the grave, Vladimir Dorta republishes his 2003 historical essay on Chile and the fantasies of the left.

…and clueless kids are still cheering on vile leftist and academic fraud Ward Churchill.

…and clueless kids are still cheering on vile leftist and academic fraud Ward Churchill.

…and clueless kids are still cheering on vile leftist and academic fraud Ward Churchill.

Here are two more appropriately caustic reviews of Jimmy Carter’s viciously anti-semitic and clueless new book, from Jacob Laksin at the conservative FrontPage Magazine, and the liberal Michael Kinsley. Apparently, Carter is a uniter, not a divider.

[Update at noon]

Rich Lowry writes about our creepy former president:

Carter argues that more people would see the Middle East his way if it weren

From a surprising source (the WaPo) an editorial about dictators and double standards.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet’s coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

Dennis “Tinfoil Hat” (boy, now there’s an old post…) Kucinich is running for president again.

Our Anonymous Moron troll whines that I don’t talk about Darfur.

Well, here’s an editorial by Ralph Peters about Darfur with which I agree, though I doubt if Anonymous Moron does:

Europe wrings its hands – as Europe always does – but declines an invitation to the dance. After all, “responsible” governments can’t play fast and loose with another state’s sovereignty. No dictator or president-for-life would be able to get a decent night’s sleep.

So Sudan’s Islamo-fascists continue to kill with impunity.

Our own left mourns theatrically for Darfur’s dead – but no one has formed a new Lincoln Brigade to take on Sudan’s Muslims fanatics. And the uncomfortable fact that Arab Muslims are slaughtering black Muslims goes ignored. It doesn’t fit the left’s comfortable worldview.

Oh, yes: Those on the left demanding that we “bring the troops home” from Iraq would be delighted to send American troops to rescue Khartoum’s victims. But our military is occupied with other cases of fanaticism and genocide in the Muslim world this holiday season.

Isn’t it curious that, when it comes to liberation, Iraq didn’t count? For the endlessly hypocritical left, there’s one magic difference between the half-million dead of Darfur and the 1.5 million people killed by Saddam in his internal massacres and neighborhood wars: Bush.

To be fair, I think that there’s another one. In the minds of many deranged leftists, Arabs can do no wrong, because they’re fighting against the evil West, capitalists and Amerikkka. And they only want us to liberate people when we have no national interest in doing so. And even then, of course, they’re not truly liberated unless they’re yoked to socialism.

By any rational measure, Castro is a much worse dictator than Pinochet ever attempted to be, but as Jonah Goldberg points out, when he dies, keep an eye out for the contrast in news coverage, and the silence from the left about his depredations against human liberty, relative to the cheering brought on by Pinochet’s death.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick has apparently died. No details.

She was eighty years old (not unusually old these days). I hadn’t heard that she was sick, but then, I hadn’t heard much about her at all in a long time, so maybe the fact that she was sick was why she wasn’t making much news.

Whenever Clinton defenders made the idiotic argument that conservatives didn’t like Hillary because they didn’t like strong women, she and Maggie Thatcher were always the two obvious rejoinders.

Like Oriana Fallaci, requiescat in pace to another fierce lioness.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here’s a memoriam from AEI.

[Update a few minutes later]

From her speech at the 1984 Republican Convention, about the time she changed parties:

They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do – they didn’t blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians – they blamed the United States instead.

But then, somehow, they always blame America first.

When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the “blame America first crowd” didn’t blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.

But then, they always blame America first.

When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn’t blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.

But then, they always blame America first.

When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don’t blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago.

But then, they always blame America first.

And over two decades later, they still do.