Inside Politics

JOINING ‘HATEFEST’

“In a major foreign-policy decision taken over the weekend, President Obama has decided to legitimize the United Nations´s ‘anti-racism’ forum known as Durban II,” Anne Bayefsky writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

“State Department officials announced in a press release buried on Saturday that starting [Monday] the United States will attend for the first time the preparatory meetings of this controversial U.N. conference. The ‘Durban Review Conference,’ scheduled for April in Geneva, is the progenitor of the anti-Semitic hatefest that took place in South Africa in early September 2001,” said the writer, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute and at Touro College, New York.

“The searing images of the demonization of America and Jews on the U.N.´s global stage, and the terrorism in New York 72 hours later, should have made joining this revived forum for U.N.-driven hate inconceivable. …

“The State Department announcement claims that participating in Durban II preparations still leaves open the possibility of refusing to attend the April conference itself. The claim is completely disingenuous. They know full well that preparations are planned on and off-the-record from now until April and will likely continue until the final moments of the actual meeting - justifying ongoing participation under the guise of ‘still can´t tell yet.’ …

“In addition, all U.N. states attending these preparatory sessions have already agreed to ‘reaffirm the Durban Declaration.’ Since the U.S. walked out of Durban I in disgust (along with Israel) and rejected the Durban I Declaration, joining negotiations now means agreeing to its provisions for the first time.”

FREDDIE’S FRIEND

“News broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent-free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Democrat - and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel’s previously undisclosed ethics problems,” Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote in the New York Post.

“One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of DeLauro’s husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel’s days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac. …

“Consider: Emanuel served on the Freddie Mac board of directors during the time that the government-backed lender lied about its earnings, a leading contributor to the current economic meltdown.

“The Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Agency later singled out the Freddie Mac board as contributing to the fraud in 2000 and 2001 for ‘failing in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.’ In other words, board members ignored the red flags waving in their faces.

“The SEC later fined Freddie $50 million for its deliberate fraud in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

“Meanwhile, Emanuel was paid more than $260,000 for his Freddie ‘service.’ Plus, after he resigned from the board to run for Congress in 2002, the troubled agency’s PAC gave his campaign $25,000 - its largest single gift to a House candidate.”

“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”

FAITH-BASED

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