Bird’s-Eye View

I don’t know whether to applaud or continue shaking my head in disbelief. From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON — President Bush signed a bill Tuesday allowing Nelson Mandela to visit the United States without the secretary of state having to certify that he is not a terrorist.

The new law removes from U.S. immigration watch lists the names of the former South African leader and others on the list because of a relationship with the African National Congress. The organization has been South Africa’s ruling party since 1994, when a majority-ruled democracy replaced a white-ruled state where the vote was based on race. During the Cold War, the West considered the ANC a communist organization that wanted to bring down pro-Western South Africa.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his work with the ANC.

Maybe it took Congress and the president seven and a half years to read through Mandela’s 656-page autobiography. Or maybe it took this long to figure out Mandela’s not a terrorist after examining years of secretly wiretapping Mandela’s calls to friends in the United States. I dunno.