Impossible dream of a lunatic, delayed by a day

From the Department of Don’t Hold Your Breath:

An African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia has been extended to a fourth day amid disagreements on the issue of creating a United States of Africa.

Ummm…I’d wager it more likely that it only took seven days (or was it six?) for God to create the Earth. Even setting aside his penchant for regional meddling (not to mention for concocting bizarre Middle Eastern beverages peace proposals), the selection of Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi as chairman of the African Union does not bode well for the credibility of the organization.  If this year’s summit is being extended so that heads of state can seriously discuss the outdated fiction of creating a “United States of Africa,” then the AU is not getting off to a very good start in taking care of actual business.  This is an organization that was created to improve upon the notorious “club of dictators” that its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, had become.  Yet now, after in previous years resisting the “campaign” of Sudan’s democratically elected president genocidal dictator, the AU has now appointed a man who calls himself the “king of kings.” But then, maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up, and there will be a United States of Africa, proving me wrong and retroactively vindicating Sarah Palin in the process.

UPDATE: A view from a fire escape: the U.S. of Africa plan is fudge.

UPDATE II: Claudia Rosett, whose opinions I loathe and whom I therefore do not like to cite, claims that in Arabic, the suffix “-tine” means “mud” or “dirt,” making Ghaddafi’s “Isratine” either a “sick joke” with a subtle (if childish) jab at Israel, or perhaps just an even yuckier cocktail.  While this sounds exactly like the kind of self-righteous paranoia and scandal-mongering that typically characterize Rosett’s writing, it’d be easier to dismiss the idea of this underhanded ploy were the alleged perpetrator…anyone other than Muammar Ghaddafi.