Democrats and foreign policy insanity

In addition to their generally clownish governance of Congress, the Democrats have been specializing in shockingly stupid foreign policy blunders. Last year, the most notorious blunder was Speaker Nancy Pelosi's disastrous public support of a congressional condemnation of the Armenian genocide. Fortunately, Pelosi was willing to retract her support in time to dissuade Turkey from declaring war on the United States.

Since this year is an election year, the international lunacy is being taken to the next level. The first victim this time around is Colombia:

Her [Senator Clinton's] bizarre lie about the nonexistent sniper fire that threatened her in Bosnia was the first nail. The hurried departure of her chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, is the second. It makes perfect sense that Penn has been defenestrated for doing something entirely sensible — meeting with representatives of a U.S. ally, Colombia, that wishes to pursue a closer trade relationship with us. Colombia is not only a friend of the United States; it is engaged in a battle with the worst player in the Americas, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, which is trying to destabilize it. But because Hillary is engaged in a gross act of deception toward Democratic primary voters on the matter of free trade — which she has decided to oppose solely for P.T. Barnum reasons even as she would surely support it for every good reason once in the White House, — Penn had to go and go fast.

The only bright side here is that Bill and Hillary Clinton's records on free trade are strong enough to suggest that they might give in and pursue more trade with Colombia once Hillary is elected. On the other hand, I think we can safely assume that the present government of Colombia is going to be totally screwed if Barack Obama becomes president.

The next victim is China. There has been a growing call for Western heads of state to boycott the Olympics in order to protest China's oppression in Tibet and support for the government of Sudan in Darfur. How are the Western democracies choosing to demonstrate their moral superiority on this issue to China? By sending mobs to attack Olympic events, of course:

Paris' Olympic torch relay descended into chaos Monday, with protesters scaling the Eiffel Tower, grabbing for the flame and forcing security officials to repeatedly snuff out the torch and transport it by bus past demonstrators yelling "Free Tibet!"

The relentless anti-Chinese demonstrations ignited across the capital with unexpected power and ingenuity, foiling 3,000 police officers deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and even inline skates.

Chinese organizers finally gave up on the relay, canceling the last third of what China had hoped would be a joyous jog by torch-bearing VIPs past some of Paris' most famous landmarks.

Instead of demonstrating our moral superiority to China, our left-wing demonstrators are demonstrating that we are just like China.