What kind of person....

....would support Kofi Annan?

The meeting of veteran foreign policy experts in a Manhattan apartment one recent Sunday was held in strict secrecy. The guest of honor arrived without his usual retinue of aides.

The mission, in the words of one participant, was clear: "to save Kofi and rescue the U.N."

At the gathering, Secretary General Kofi Annan listened quietly to three and a half hours of bluntly worded counsel from a group united in its personal regard for him and support for the United Nations. The group's concern was that lapses in his leadership during the past two years had eclipsed the accomplishments of his first four-year term in office and were threatening to undermine the two years remaining in his final term.

(Emphasis mine.)"Personal regard for" Kofi Annan? This is the man who has overseen the largest corruption scandal in the history of the world - whose own son was deeply involved in the scandal - whose employees routinely rape children that they are supposed to be helping without fear of consequence - who sits idly by while the French slaughter unarmed civilians in the Ivory Coast - whose aid workers take money earmarked for aid to poor people and use it to buy mansions, swimming pools and Landcruisers.

What kind of person would hold such a man in high regard?

The meeting was held in the apartment of Richard C. Holbrooke, a United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton.

Others in attendance were John G. Ruggie, assistant secretary general for strategic planning from 1997 to 2001 and now a professor of international relations at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Leslie H. Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Timothy E. Wirth, the president of the United Nations Foundation, based in Washington; Kathy Bushkin, the foundation's executive vice president; Nader Mousavizadeh, a former special assistant to Mr. Annan who left in 2003 to work at Goldman Sachs; and Robert C. Orr, the assistant secretary general for strategic planning. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, was invited but could not attend.

Wealthy, out-of-touch liberals, who have no concept of what it means to struggle in life and no empathy whatsoever for the common man.