Self-Annointed Arbiters

No long ago I noted that the purity brigades were gunning for Alvaro Uribe, especially as he's now on a panel investigating Israel. Well, Benjamin Birnbaum now has a long article looking into the matter. His finding, in a nutshel: Uribe did a terrific job on what was most important, he was far from perfect, and he had some rather ugly allies. And also, on page 3 of the article, there's this:

Inter-American Dialogue (IAD) President Michael Shifter, who sits on Human Rights Watch's Americas advisory committee, said that while the scandals tarnish the former president's legacy, he thinks human rights groups have at times suffered from tunnel vision with regard to Mr. Uribe, whom he called "a net plus" for Colombia. "The problem with the criticism is not that it's not accurate or carefully done," Mr. Shifter said. "It's just that it's a partial view of a more complex situation."

Then there's this months darling of the so-called human-rights brigade, Jullian Assange of Wikileaks. Abu Muqawama notices that Julian doesn't want anyone to know who his backers are: transparency has to have some limits, after all.