September 24, 2006
A Speech That Khrushchev or Arafat or Che Would Admire
By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS -- WHEN President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela used his General Assembly appearance to call President Bush a devil who had left a telltale scent of sulfur on the speaker’s podium, he was acting in an old, if not grand, tradition. ...
Edward C. Luck, a professor of international affairs at Columbia who has followed the United Nations for more than three decades, said the General Assembly was a particularly alluring place for demagogues.
“If you want your 15 minutes of fame, what better place to get it than the rostrum of the General Assembly?” he said. “I think very often they are playing for the domestic audience and trying to build up their persona as a tough guy not afraid to take on the Yankee superpower.”
But what might work at home doesn’t necessarily play well on the world stage. “I think in the end they all come off as rejectionists,” he said. “They’re good at saying what they don’t like, but they don’t have any positive thoughts.” ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/weekinreview/24hoge.html>
Carl