Bush showing leadership on Darfur

By BOGDAN KIPLING

THERE he goes again, jaded politicians may have shrugged on Tuesday after President George W. Bush announced sanctions and directed Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, to seek British support for yet another Security Council resolution against the genocide Sudan is committing in Darfur.

More words, more United Nations diplomacy, more running off in all directions – and more of nothing to show for it, Mr. Bush’s critics at home and abroad may groan.

And more murder, more starvation and more rapes in Darfur, they may pile on for good measure.

That would be one kind of reaction to the early morning presidential statement from the Diplomatic Reception Room in the White House. But that isn’t the echo heard in Washington 24 hours later.

What is heard here is an unusual endorsement from the New York Times and a blatantly partisan "too little, too late" dismissal from Tom Lantos, the otherwise distinguished Democrat from California who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>