How long before the neoconservatives endorse Hillary Clinton for president?

I'm not saying that's going to happen, but don't laugh. Sunday's Washington Post front-paged a story on the neocons' abandonment of the Bush administration. The Post is a little late on this. The NCs have long been pissed off at the Bush crowd for making a mess of the war they had advocated for years. This group initially focused its ire on Donald Rumsfeld. The Weekly Standard called on him to resign in April 2004. His sin: sending too few troops to Iraq. Now with Rummy finally on the way out and the debacle in Iraq seeming more a debacle each day, who else can the not-my-fault hawks blame? George W. Bush, the fellow they once heralded as a visionary, and Dick Cheney, their main man at 1600 Pennsylvania. Anyone but themselves.

But back to my opening question. The neocons are well-practiced at turning on political allies. After the first President Bush--with James Baker by his side--dared to apply a slight bit of pressure on Israel, several neocons rushed to endorse Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992, hoping this Democrat would be more hard-line in supporting Israeli policies, including Israel's controversial expansion of settlements in disputed territories. Yes, it might be a stretch to imagine this band contemplating a political dalliance with Clinton's wife--especially when she's slowly drifting toward opposition to the war, while John McCain is calling for more troops in Iraq (troops that don't exist and that might not do much long-term good, according to various military experts). But these folks can spin on a dime if politics and ideology demand it. I'm just waiting for the Standard to call for impeaching Bush and Cheney.

NEVER AGAIN? In the summer of 1941, if someone had projected on to the Washington Monument film footage of German troops locking 3000 Polish Jews into the Great Synagogue of Bialystock and burning it down, would such a move have caused decision-makers in Washington to react to the Nazi's incipient genocide campaign and take action? That's the thought I had the other night when I attended an exhibit at Provisions Library featuring grim and gut-wrenching photographs and videos from Darfur. There were many photos of villages being burned as part of the government-backed genocide campaign there. The most harrowing footage was of a man whose eyes had been gouged out during a raid on his village by the Janjaweed militia supported and enabled by the Sudanese government. At the end of the video, this man was hugging a boy--five years old or so--who clung tightly to the man and whose eyes registered a haunting incomprehension of the horror that has defined his young life.

These images are part of a traveling exhibit entitled "Who Will Survive Today?" that was organized by Darfur/Darfur, a nonprofit group created by a collection of concerned individuals--architects, filmmakers, lawyers, and such. The outfit is aiming to have this show hit 24 cities in 24 months. (You can see the schedule here, and for more on the show, read Suzanne Charle's review at TheNation.com.) The point is obvious: raise awareness.

In Washington, starting November 20, the exhibit will do this in an unusual fashion. For a week, each night (from 5:30 p.m. to midnight) wall-sized versions of the images will be projected on the outside of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Kudos to the museum--which two years ago declared a "genocide emergency" in Darfur--for connecting the past to the present. "Once you see photos of a murdered three-year-old little boy whose face has been smashed or the body of a one-year-old girl who has been shot you cannot honestly look at your own children without doing something to stop this killing," says Darfur/Darfur founder Leslie Thomas, a Chicago-area architect. Thomas, a mother, was obviously speaking for herself. If only that were true for everyone.

For more information on the Holocaust Museum event, click here.

Posted by David Corn at November 19, 2006 11:30 PM