John Gibson vs. Kofi Annan

Once more, Fox News' John Gibson has posted a column, embarrassing himself before the entire world. I can't believe this guy is willing to post his blatherings online! Does he think no one is reading? Isn't he ashamed at bi-weekly revealing to everyone who cares to breeze past his website his complete lack of depth, knowledge or intelligence? His writing is the literary equivalent of a guy accidentally pissing his pants at work and then finishing the rest of the day without cleaning up, pausing occasionally to point out his crotch stain to a stranger. Self-effacement to the point of masochism.

Take his latest screed against the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. John's all fired up about an interview Annan gave last week. A reporter asked if he should possibly step down from his position for the "good of the UN." And Annan replied "Hell no." But it's not the use of the word "Hell" of which John Gibson disapproves. No, he wrote an entire column about how it appeared to him that Annan's response to the question was "staged."

The "Hell no" part is good — tough, assertive, solid — all the stuff Kofi is generally not. But the shifty eyes tell me this was a media advisor's piece of work.

Somebody worked up a focus group, or it seems like it anyway. They studied the people who hate the U.N — the same people who thought it was cool that Dick Cheney told Pat Leagy what he could do to himself, if you get my drift. Those people might think better of Kofi if he said something like the U.N. version of John Wayne.

Wait, John, slow down. That's too much stupid crap for me to respond to in only one post...Can't you spread out the idiocy over several days so I might adequately fisk it all? Nope? Okay, fine.

Anyway, John's theory that a media advisor may have coached Kofi Annan's response is ludicrous for a variety of reasons, regardless of whether or not it's even true. Who gives a shit if Annan dealt with a "media advisor"? Every politician does! John Gibson really ought to confer with a media advisor. Their advice would probably go as follows:

"John, baby, you've got to stop writing columns online...Or at least run them by an editor first or something. I mean, 'Pat Leagy'? It's Leahy, you moron! And try not to look so much like a weasel. That'll be several hundred thousand dollars."

And John's personal hero, our President, the Honorable Orangutan from Mai...no, wait, Washingt...oh yeah, I mean, um, Texas...G. Dub Shrub...George Walker Bush? Would John criticize the President for dealing with a media advisor? The president's got more people handling his press than Lindsay Lohan's entire family. His media advisors have media advisors.

But, no, international diplomat Kofi Annan's not allowed to dart his eyes around a bit during a response. Doesn't John remember George Bush in the first Presidential debate? He didn't look coached, he looked like he had Asperger's Syndrome. Which is worse?

You gonna quit, you lousy Euro wimp — you hand-wringing corruption-tolerating anti-American? Hell no John Wayne growls. But if it's John Wayne, he crawls through the TV and punches me out for saying those other things about him.

Okay, John's using a very familiar rhetorical device here called projection. He's trying to say mean things about Kofi Annan without actually stating them as his own opinion. He shifts the attitude to a "typical American." You know, the typical American who thought Dick Cheney insulting Patrick Leagy...Leahy!...was rip-roaring hilarious. So, you can't accuse John Gibson of calling Kofi Annan a "lousy Euro wimp," certainly one of the most inane insults ever published. He was just repeating an attitude he assumes someone out there in red state America must have.

And I don't understand what he means in that second sentence...John Gibson's actually seen John Wayne emerge from his television set, Ring-style, to punch him in response to an insult? Or is this some failed attempt at humor?

Look, Kofi looked the other way while Saddam Hussein tried to bribe the security council; he let his staff and his son pick up the loose change that fell out of Saddam's pockets; he spent a year telling the world the U.S. was a rogue, lawless state that had no right, and no reason to start the Iraq war; and he ran like a rabbit the first time some U.N. people got killed in Iraq.

I know this Oil-For-Food scandal went down during Kofi's watch, and that he shoulders some of the responsibility...but still, Gibson's hardly made the case that Annan must be removed from power. Especially considering the corruption in our current government. No one's asking Rumsfeld or Cheney to step down over their various scandals, and their guilt has long been established.

Plus, is this guy totally mental? Opposing the American war in Iraq means that Kofi Annan should lose his job? He's the head of the UN, and the vast majority of the world agrees with his position! What part of that is a fireable offense again?

And, John, the United States is a rogue, lawless state that had no right and no reason to start the Iraq War. Annan was right! What was the reason for the Iraq War, real quick? Nope, not freedom on the march. Stockpiles of WMD that didn't exist.

I want a UN leader who will try to stop mass killing, dammit.

The U.S. got Kofi's predecessor moved out. What's the problem moving Kofi out? Oh right, we don't want the world thinking we think we are the world's most important nation, which we are, because it's too triumphalist to be caught thinking such a thing.

Did you know that, if you're under 30 and have a good educational background, it's amazingly easy to gain Canadian citizenship? It's true! They have an underpopulation problem in the Great White North. I hear Montreal and Vancouver are beautiful cities...I don't know if I can share a nation with a despicable character like John Gibson.

Read that paragraph, really read it. It's not just pompous and snarky. It's racist and insulting. We are not, John, the world's most important nation. There's no such thing. And if there were, I'd say it's the nation with the largest human population. So, China and then India.

But that's beside the point. There is no most important nation because that's an idiotic, oversimplified and, by definition, self-centered, navel-gazing way to view the world. We're a collection of nations. Some have more power and influence than others, but we should try to counteract that whenever possible.

Our goal should always be to enfranchise those with no voice and uplift those with no opportunity. Not to flaunt our position, gained because we're the most corrupt nation that's managed to exploit the most people the most successfully, in the faces of everyone else.

To demand that international leaders step down when they disagree with us. John wants to complain that we can't loudly declare our greatness to everyone else for fear of seeming triumphalist? Say what?

Recently, I watched the documentary Control Room, about the inner workings of the Al-Jazeera TV network and the journalists employed there. It's a fascinating look inside the War on Terror from the perspective of forward-thinking, Western-educated citizens of the Middle East, both Arab and otherwise.

In one scene, an Al-Jazeera story editor comments on America's role in the Middle East. He opines that America wants not only to rule the world, but to make the world like it. And the rest of the world will never fully concede power in this way. We can use our power and oppress others, but we can't make them love us.

That's what John Gibson wants - a world not only pressed under America's thumb, but happily smiling all the while. He wants a UN that's really just an American puppet, an organization to greenlight any horrific military action US economic interests deem worthy of attention. It's a sickening, selfish, abhorrent worldview. Once again, I'm forced to ask myself how Americans can call themselves a "Christian nation" while treating everyone around them so cruelly. It's not very Jesus-y.

We are a humble nation. But Kofi should go. Hell yes!

John's just trying to make me laugh now. After this villainous tirade, he declares America (and by extension, himself) to be humble. Maybe it's just a typo, or he doesn't know what the world humble means. Maybe he thinks it's a synonym for "kickass" or something. Yeah, that must be it.