HER VANCE TO HIS CARTER:

Drinking the Kool-Aid: Failing to lead, Hillary follows the President in placating the world (Michael Goodwin, August 16th 2009, NY Daily News)

The bended-knee approach abroad shames America and reduces our great nation to the sum of its mistakes and failures. And it seems designed to create the misleading impression that Third-World kleptocrats and genocidal maniacs are, gee, just like us.

Clinton's moral equivalency moment came when she told a group of Nigerian activists that, "In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for President was the governor of the state. So we have our problems, too." [...]

Nigerians would be thankful for any election that didn't involve the army and stacks of corpses. Instead, they get childish bromides about American flaws.

That sends a demoralizing message to reformers fighting Nigeria's government, which is regarded as one of the most corrupt in the world.