It’s a mini-round up of the two most recent things I’ve read:
One, Obama now has a war atrocities czar — formally known as the Director of War Atrocities and Civilian Protection. At least that’s what the Daily Beast is calling David Pressman’s new job, in an article that I found pretty confusing.
Let’s hope the real title sounds less like Obama appointed someone to commit war atrocities and more like he wants someone to, er, protect civilians.
“Pressman worked with Clooney!” the article swoons. But he also worked with Madeleine Albright, it points out further down, who chaired the genocide prevention task force that recommended the creation of the post.
I don’t get any real idea from the article what the role of the post will be (and I find it odd that Rwanda is on the list of ongoing places to be monitored for war atrocities; I think the named Burma and Congo are a little bit more pressing). Anyway, word on the street is, we’ve got an anti-genocide point person in the US government. I wonder if that means we’re supposed to stop phoning everyone else on those advocacy call lists?
Who wants to place bets on the first thing on Pressman’s to-do list?
I got distracted by all the inaccuracies in the DB story. Let’s start with the fact that Congolese diamonds aren’t of jewelry quality and move on from there…
Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I try to avoid engaging in the media critique, seeing as reporters are my colleagues. But yes, this article was, er, problematic.