MORE WEAKNESS - AT 10:06 A.M. ET:  President Obama pledged during the campaign to get tough with Sudan's leaders, in order to end the slaughters in Darfur.  Apparently, someone forgot.  The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s government, rather than isolating it as President Obama had pledged to do during his campaign.

In an interview on Friday, President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, retired, said the policy, to be announced Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would make use of a mix of “incentives and pressure” to seek an end to the human rights abuses that have left millions of people dead or displaced while burning Darfur into the American conscience.

COMMENT:  When you pledge to get tough with a bandit regime, then don't, it has profound effects.  Every thug around the world takes note, and takes pleasure, and takes action. 

Obama has been slow on Sudan, as he has been on Afghanistan.  Neither Sudan nor the United States are any better for the delay.

October 17,  2009