I've appreciated how TPM has been on top of the disturbing situation in Zimbabwe and the Mugabe situation.  It's actually made me much more aware of it and forced me to read more to understand it.  In today's TPM ticker story Mugabe: "How Can A Ball Point Pen Fight With A Gun?"

One of the first things that I've asked myself is 'where the hell is Nelson Mandela?'   Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke out recently against Mugabe and his oppressive regime which only highlights Thabo Mbeki's silence and South Africa's permissive passivity to their unlawful thug neighbor.

Mandela, who is one of my heroes, actually has spoken out quite forcefully in the past when he was much more in the public eye, but his silence now when the voice of a giant is needed makes him seem like he's in line with the weak Mbeki.  

Much like I lost lot of my respect for Bill Clinton, a man I adored, during the Clinton/Obama fight with his injection of subtle racism, Mandela is starting to lose some of his luster.  As a Catholic, the Vatican's silence against Mugabe too has given me yet another reason to scar the church in my eyes.  Thank God for Christopher Hitchins (although, I'm sure he'd tell me to go to hell for thanking God.)  Although a week old, he penned a great story in Slate asking the same questions about Mandela, the Pope and Mugabe.

By his silence about what is happening in Zimbabwe, Mandela is making himself complicit in the pillage and murder of an entire nation, as well as the strangulation of an important African democracy...

It is the silence of Mandela, much more than anything else, that bruises the soul. It appears to make a mockery of all the brave talk about international standards for human rights, about the need for internationalist solidarity and the brotherhood of man, and all that. There is perhaps only one person in the world who symbolizes that spirit, and he has chosen to betray it. Or is it possible, before the grisly travesty of the runoff of June 27, that the old lion will summon one last powerful growl?..

As for the revolting spectacle of Mugabe flying in to a Food and Agricultural Organization conference in Rome last week, there were quibbling FAO officials who claimed that the ban on his travel to the European Union did not cover meeting places of U.N. organizations...What is it going to take before the Roman Catholic Church has anything to say about the conduct of this member of its flock? Mugabe has been a devout Catholic ever since his days in a mission school in what was then colonial Rhodesia, and one is forced to wonder what he tells his priest when he is asked if he has anything he'd like to confess.

http://www.slate.com/id/2193213/