Lynn Sherr: Laura Bush's Human Rights Fiasco

[babylonsister]

Laura Bush's Human Rights Fiasco

by Lynn Sherr


As the first lady delivers a high profile speech on human rights, some are outraged that she's only now speaking up after eight years of her husband's reckless foreign policy.

First Lady Laura Bush gave her first speech to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, in what she called “my opportunity to use the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the {Universal} Declaration of Human Rights to talk about the things I’m interested in”—the rights of women in Afghanistan and Burma. Her remarks were thoughtful and occasionally poignant, reflecting her obvious concern for the violence they face and the critical need for girls’ education, an issue “close to my heart.”

“She obviously is a human rights activist,” one member remarked to me afterwards. “Too bad it hasn’t rubbed off on her husband.”

“I am outraged. They’re having a person whose husband has been entirely detrimental to human rights in a way that humiliates the country. It’s a disgrace.”

And there’s the rub.

Some rows of seats remained empty, and I counted only about one hundred members—far smaller than the SRO audiences I’ve seen for, say, Roger Altman, who recently spoke about the economy, or for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do people not care about human rights in these countries? Or do they care so much, they stayed away?

Beforehand, a few Council members told me they were enraged by the timing of Mrs. Bush’s speech, on this date celebrating the bible of the international human rights movement, which was created under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Look, there was once a first lady who helped to draft a universal declaration of human rights,” said Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch and a member of the Council. “And maybe the calculation was, why don’t we invite another one to talk about it? But you know, Laura Bush ain’t no Eleanor Roosevelt. What was the Council on Foreign Relations thinking?”

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-10/the-laura-bush-backlash/

[hlthe2b]

1. I am so tired of those enabling the white wash...

Laura isn't her husband, granted, but she is standing up for an administration who promoted torture, illegal secret rendition, illegal unprovoked war and who have led to the deaths and suffering of countless hundreds of thousands, including the women she purports to defend in Afganistan. They are war criminals--and have NO credibility to speak on human rights.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Once you seen one first lady, you seen 'em all!

Laura, Betty, Nancy, Eleanor, Florence...six of one, half a dozen of the other!

ER: Oh, dear!

[Captain Hilts]

3. And, by the way, NO ONE here on DU gave a rat's ass about the 60th Anniv. of the Dec of Human Rights

My post dropped like a rock. I saw no others.

And the FDR Library sent out no notices whatsoever.

[makinguphumans]

4. I tink I saw yours. did you have a pic of E. by her car??

[Captain Hilts]

6. Like this?

On the FDR Library website photo page. They have a bunch of copyright-free photographs, but there aren't many good ones of F&E together. And I DO like him checkin' out her new car. It must be the last photograph of them before neither is grey and exhausted looking. May of 1933.

[benld74]

5. Well she was rehearsing lines in that movie, The Dark Night!!