When I heard that Jeane Kirkpatrick died in her sleep, I couldn't help but think of the hundreds of thousands who were not so fortunate - but instead were butchered by the armies and in the torture chambers of the "mildly repressive" authoritarian regimes that Kirkpatrick so loved during her sorry tenure on this planet. Does NPR mention even one of her bloodthirsty darlings -- Pinochet of
Chile or the "Dirty War" generals of Argentina? Not a peep! The closest to criticism of Kirkpatrick NPR can come is to say "hers was a sharp and sometimes biting voice" (Steve Inskeep) or "a blunt and forceful advocate of the administration's policies" (Deborah Amos).
On Morning Edition after
a brief tribute,
NPR trots out the
discredited William Kristol to share feelings about Kirkpatrick. Kristol has nothing but praise for Kirkpatrick's thesis that authoritarian regimes are so much better and likely to become democratic than any tainted with "socialism" (which gets slurred as totalitarian). Kristol claims that it is the US that gets credit for the democratization of Korea and the Phillippines (not the activists and radicals who fought the dictatorships there)!
Then on
ATC Robert Siegel talks to Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute (again!--click on "Brookings" label below). From Siegel we hear that "we knew her as the ambassador and vigorous speaker" while Mann tells us that she was "a formidable individual" and "did make a difference in that regard."
Here are a few Kirkpatrick gems I would have liked to hear:
- In her "famous" paper "Dictatorships and Double Standards" she wrote of Somoza and the Shah "both rulers, therefore, sometimes invoked martial law to arrest, imprison, exile, and occasionally, it was alleged, torture their opponents."
- Speaking of the four Maryknoll nuns raped and murdered by the army in El Salvador she said, "The nuns were not just nuns, they were political activists, and we should be very clear about that."
Kirkpatrick was disgusting when alive, and this whitewash of her legacy is pretty revolting too. I guess NPR is just warming up for the Kissinger-fest that will follow his death.
