Robert Mugabe has an Enabler, and, surprise, it isn't the mainstream media types at the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today and the rest of our MSM for their lack of focus on the issue. Their readers know more about the state of Madonna's marriage than the Marxist nutcase that rules Zimbabwe. (Howard Rosenberg, media critic at the Los Angeles Times: "The media doesn't tell you what to think. They tell you what to think about.")

No. It is the fault of Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, according to Sebastian Mallaby, writing in the Washington Post. But Mbeki is not all bad.

Mbeki is undoubtedly an able man -- thoughtful in conversation, workaholic in habit, a wizard in the dark arts of backroom politics. But he is a tragic figure: He personifies the flaw that his own New Partnership is intended to inhibit. Open and accountable government is desirable because it exposes leaders to criticism, obliges them to listen and so reduces the risk of blatantly bad policy. But Mbeki, who leads a democratic government but one without electable opponents, is no more willing to accept criticism than to dish it out.

BOLDING MINE. Let's see, a democratic government without electable opponents. Sounds a lot like, ah, Canada until recently. And California.