OJ:

Try to parse the logic that causes Molly Ivins to decry our efforts in Iraq and then condemn us for supposedly not acting in Sudan:

So far, we have not brought democracy to Iraq. We have brought blood, killing and death. [...]

Elsewhere on our suffering orb, genocide proceeds in Darfur. The United States won't act. The United Nations won't act. We're all ... just letting it happen. Again.

A general hatred for America on her part is of course the only explanation consistent with her views: condemning America for stopping killing while at the same time condemning America for not stopping killing. I'm glad we on the right have guys like Andrew Ferguson to skillfully eviscerate her and her kind.

Matt: We don't have any vital interests in Sudan; of course the left thinks we ought to invade.

Molly is taking her intense hatred for George W. Bush with her to the grave over his 1994 win against her buddy Ann Richards, so it's perfectly normal for her to slam Bush for two actions that are completely contradictory. Were we to go into Darfur, she'd start screaming that Bush is following the racist footstpes of the colonialists of the 19th Century in controlling the lives of those in Africa.

As for MoDo, the times would be better off if they let Yogi Berra have all of her op-ed space, since he makes far more sense than anything she writes that doesn't come from immediate family members.

We should, of course, do more in Sudan, though we've done much already.

David,

That's just arrant nonsense. We have two very definite interests in Sudan. First, it is an increasingly important producer of oil and natural gas, and there has been significant penetration into those areas by Talisman Energy of Canada and by the PRC. Second, the Muslims of the Sudan have been engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Christians and animists of the Southern provinces around Juba. This has included mass butchery and selling of children into slavery. As the leading power of civilization and what used to be called 'Christendom' we have a special responsibility in the region just as we had in East Timor, until the Australians took the lead when we dropped the ball under Kissinger and subsequent administrations.

Now, if you want Americans to stay home and watch TV when Christians darker than Arnold Schwarzenegger get butchered by the hundreds of thousands, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

We have no vital interests in Sudan. Who cares whom runs the oil risks, we just buy it later.

Bart make a moral point only. Perhaps we do have such a duty. But so does the rest of the West.

Bart:

We already saved the Christians.

Bart's problem isn't that mass slaughter is taking place, or even mass slaughter involving Muslims, but only that it's not the Muslims being slaughtered.

Also, I have no problem with our doing "something" in Sudan, depending upon what "something" is. I'm only noting that the left will support military action only when we have no vital interest at stake.

As there is a world market for oil, and a world price (denominated in dollars, as it happens), who owns the oil and where it goes is irrelevant. We get just as much benefit from China owning it and shipping it to China as we do from our owning it and shipping it here.

Bob:

Except the rest of the West is no longer moral.

'limited modified' or 'modified limited'?

Google gives 3 times as many hits for the latter. Dowd is a contrarian, I see.

Mr. Cohen:

Right on: Leftists only support action when we have nothing to gain. It's responsibility without power -- which, as Malcolm Muggeridge said, is the opposite of the harlot's prerogative.