Dems for Druglords & Dirty Bombers

Quite an election platform--Democrats for Druglords and Dirty Bombers. Add to that their inaction on FISA and you have a criminally irresponsible party in control of Congress. Sen. Obama of farm state Illinois should also recognize that Colombia is one of the biggest buyers of US farm products and many job-creating small businesses are exporters as well.

Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both competing for union support. But if they wanted to demonstrate their own Presidential qualities, they'd be privately telling Ms. Pelosi to pass the Colombia pact while Mr. Bush is still in office. That would spare either one of them from having to spend political capital to pass it next year.

Instead, both say they oppose the deal on grounds that Mr. Uribe has not done more to protect "trade unionists." In fact, Mr. Uribe has done more to reduce violence in Colombia than any modern leader in Bogotá.

I would think Sen. Obama in particular would wish to lay to rest any hint that he welcomes the support of FARC's narco-terrorists, who by the way are holding Americans hostage and who curiously had a position on trade:

In a Feb. 28 letter, FARC chieftain Raul Reyes cheerily reported to his inner circle that he met "two gringos" who assured him "the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support 'Plan Colombia' nor will he sign the TLC (Free Trade Agreement)."

Aside from some interesting possibilities about who these "gringos" are — a congressional delegation did visit Ecuador and an international leftist "congress" was held in Quito around this time — the real question is why anyone secretly consorting with FARC would be able to speak for presidential candidate Obama.

And as we know now, FARC's head of state sponsors, most notoriously Hugo Chavez, have been instigating violence in Colombia.

UPDATE: WaPo's Jackson Diehl, "FARC's Guardian Angel":

Assuming these documents are authentic -- and it's hard to believe that the cerebral and calculating Uribe would knowingly hand over forgeries to the world media and the Organization of American States -- both the Bush administration and Latin American governments will have fateful decisions to make about Chávez. His reported actions are, first of all, a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, passed in September 2001, which prohibits all states from providing financing or havens to terrorist organizations. More directly, the Colombian evidence would be more than enough to justify a State Department decision to cite Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism.

So Hugo Chavez would officially pass into the realm of evil leaders. If Sen. Obama is serious about being able to handle the red phone call at 3 a.m. he should recognize not only the limits of UN resolutions in schooling the world's bad guys, but also see that Chavez faces consequences for his actions--not a future meeting with a can-we-talk-Barack as president.

In the short term, the best way to deal with Chavez is to approve the trade deal for Colombia--an exercise in effective soft power. And it would be a Sister Souljah moment for Barack that would give Americans some reassurance he wouldn't sacrifice our security in our own Western Hemisphere to union interests. (Remember the Dem intransigence on union jobs for airport security cost them a Senate seat, Max Cleland, in 2002.)

UPDATE: Rich Lowry on the Dem delegate calculus:

But if the race is essentially a tie and Obama has won a lot of delegates in caucuses that are less representative than the primaries, why should super-delegates be bound by Obama's tiny lead in pledged delegates? It isn't written in the rules anywhere that that's what they have to do—in fact, the opposite. They can decide on whatever grounds they like. This Washington Post piece suggests many of them will decide on the basis of who would be the strongest candidate against McCain and be the best president.