Long Run

Remember John Kerry? It's been a busy few weeks for the 2004 Democratic nominee. Last Monday, Kerry delivered a long speech at Brown University, blasting the Bush administration's inept response to Katrina. Two days later, Kerry gave a floor speech in the Senate declaring his unsurprising opposition to the John Roberts nomination.Make no mistake: Kerry designed these to be attention-grabbers. His staff hyped both of them relentlessly. Four e-mails from Kerryland popped into my inbox before and after his Brown speech, which Kerry aides billed as a "major address." Meanwhile, his Roberts speech was heralded by no fewer than six e- mail alerts, a pace that might embarrass some Viagra spammers. And the net result was, well, not much. The New York Times and The Washington Post both lumped Kerry's "major address" in with a similar anti-Bush speech delivered by John Edwards. Kerry's Roberts broadside earned equally fleeting mentions in both papers. Even bloggers didn't seem interested. It's not just the media--it's Democratic voters, too. Kerry placed second in an August CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll that asked Democrats whom they preferred as a 2008 nominee. That doesn't sound so bad until you consider the numbers. Kerry finished with 16 percent, while the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton (of course), had a whopping 40 percent. And Kerry was barely ahead of John Edwards, who placed just one point behind him. None of this should come as a shock to anyone--except Kerry himself. In the midst of his typically windy Roberts speech, Kerry paused and looked up to the Senate rostrum. "Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?" Kerry asked. "The senator's time has expired," came the reply. And so it has. In the Darfur region of Sudan, governmentsponsored violence and intimidation continue to claim thousands of lives a month. Yet, if you listened to world leaders, you would conclude that the African Union's deployment of troops to Darfur is a fully adequate response. Kofi Annan recently reported to the U.N. Security Council that, "In some respects, the security situation in Darfur has improved over the past year. The presence of the A.U. Mission in the Sudan ... has been a major factor in this improvement." Praise has come from other corners as well. Back in May, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said, "I want to stress the wholly remarkable work the African Union is doing on the spot." And, during her July trip to Africa, Condoleezza Rice had this to say about Darfur: "The African Union has the lead on this.... I think Africans believe that this is a conflict ... best resolved on the ground by Africans." All this praise for the African Union might sound like harmless encouragement. Except it's not harmless at all. Perpetuating the myth that the A.U. mission to Darfur is succeeding is an easy way for the world's powers to pretend that Western intervention isn't needed. But continuing violence against defenseless civilians, including increased attacks on humanitarian operations, shows that A.U. forces are failing to protect the people of Darfur. And, by continuing to insist that those troops are doing a good job, Western leaders are failing the people of Darfur, too. Eric Reeves is an English professor at Smith College and has written extensively on Sudan.