Why The New Republic Is Down With Us

Reverse that I guess, since I've never had the pleasure of working with those guys. TNR takes a lot of heat, and perhaps deservedly so, for its Mideast politics. But every once in a while you see something like this, something you know simply would not be published virtually anywhere else that matters. Here's TNR's frank assessment of Bush's over-lauded Africa policy:

Consumed by the war on terror, Bush has taken a far different approach. Rather than supporting democratic institutions and criticizing a new generation of African authoritarians, the Bush administration has backed whatever African leader claims to be battling militant Islam. For example, the White House has developed a close relationship with Ethiopia's thuggish leader Meles Zenawi, supposedly an ally in the war on terror and a partner in battling militancy in neighboring Somalia. The administration has provided military aid to Ethiopia with virtually no conditions on the assistance. It has also offered advisers to support Ethiopia's invasion of neighboring Somalia, an invasion which only led to more chaos in that benighted nation. Meanwhile, in recent years Zenawi's government has overseen a massive crackdown on opposition activists and a brutal offensive in the country's Ogaden region; in 2005, after disputed elections, the Ethiopian government arrested over 30,000 of its own people.