Same as the old boss

I realize half the point of the front page is to toady to the powerful, with photos, but really: trying to pass off Hillary Clinton sounding sternly anti-Hamas as either 'smart power' or 'tough diplomacy' -- for that matter, trying to pass it off as news -- is pretty pathetic.

Meanwhile doomed U.N. attempts to stop the fighting make page A15, as do the completely disgusting efforts by the Israeli right to ban Arab political parties. So far the Globe has had 0 coverage of Olmert's claim to dictate American voting at the UN, which has been a pretty big scandal in the US. And today's editorial -- after nothing on Gaza or Israel for at least the previous four days -- is condemning, of all things, the UN Human Rights Council, which is indeed a wacky chronically anti-Israeli group -- but who cares? It's hard to imagine a more pusillanimous choice of focus: it enables the Globe to insinuate that the Harper government is being rational and even-handed and standing up for the little guy, when in terms of the realities on the ground they're aggressively cheerleading for the bullies. Ugh -- it's really hard to know which is being more cynical, cowardly and self-discrediting here, our government or our press.

You heard it here first: 'tough diplomacy' is going to be the 'compassionate conservatism' of the new regime. A have-it-both-ways oxymoron whose two sides, somewhat miraculously, both manage to be lies. Unless you can tell me how refusing to talk or engage with the powerless, under orders from another country's government, is either tough or diplomatic. 'Soft power' -- same thing.