On March 23, President Bush had harsh words for armed right-wing militants (a.k.a. the Minutemen) planning to patrol the border for migrants:

QUESTION: And, President Bush, I wanted to ask you about your opinion about those people who are hunting migrant people along the border.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America. I’m for enforcing law in a rational way. That’s why you got a Border Patrol, and they ought to be in charge of enforcing the border.

Today, however, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan suggested that the Minutemen are just peaceful, law abiding citizens doing their “American duty”:

Q Does the President think that these people are doing their American duty, which is what they’ve said — they’re trying to help —

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I’ve seen the reports over the weekend where some individuals have been reporting suspicious activity to the proper authorities so that the authorities could take control of those matters. And so that’s what I’ve seen from the news reports.

In seeming response to the nearly 60 former diplomats who spoke out against the nomination of John Bolton as United Nations ambassador, a different coalition of former diplomats are praising Bolton in their own letter to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The “counterattack” is organized by Frank Gaffney Jr., “a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.” Since he himself once referred to the United Nations as “bloated, scandal-ridden and oppressor-dominated,” it is fitting that Frank Gaffney would rise to the defense of a fellow United Nations disparager such as Bolton.

Gaffney on Hans Blix: “Hans Blix, the hapless Swedish diplomat chosen by Saddam’s friends on the Security Council…”

Gaffney on the United Nations General Assembly: “[T]he United Nations’ General Assembly, in which every member nation gets one vote, and the lowest common denominator of anti-Western sentiments … usually enjoys overwhelming majorities.”

Gaffney on the U.S. seeking international cooperation through the U.N.: “The spectacle of the greatest power in the world being reduced to begging the likes of Guinea and Angola for support has demeaned this nation even as it shows the true, unsavory character of a ‘world body’ governed by parochial interests, not some higher virtue.”

Gaffney and the U.N.’s relevance to the War on Terror: “[I]t seems unlikely this attempt to create a useful ‘world body’ or ‘international community’ will succeed in dealing with the real security challenges of the 21st century — in particular, terrorist-sponsoring and proliferating regimes — any more than the League of Nations did in the last one.”

Gaffney on what the Iraqi people are saying: “And I heard — when I was in Iraq a couple of months back, I heard them say please don’t turn us over to the tender mercies of U.N., an organization that propped up Saddam Hussein and used billions of dollars of his money.” [CNN, 4/27/04]

Former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Jim Nicholson painted a moving picture of the relationship between the deceased Pope John Paul II and President Bush on Fox News Sunday:

Well, the last meeting I had with him was just a few weeks ago with my wife and I in his apartment when I was getting ready to leave Rome…And the discussion he wanted to have that morning with me was about President Bush, who he admired greatly for his value system… And I was able to tell him that we want to fulfill our number one goal of our foreign policy, which is to enhance human dignity worldwide, which is the same goal that he had.

Last summer, however, the Pope had some harsh words for President Bush on foreign policy and values. From the London Times:

In a Papal lecture far stronger and more stinging than the White House had expected, the Pope told Mr Bush during a meeting at the Vatican that without a commitment to “shared human values” the War on Terror was unwinnable.

And here’s Pope John Paul II on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal:

“In the past few weeks other deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all, and made more difficult a serene and resolute commitment to shared human values: in the absence of such a commitment neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome.”