From the office of unqualified hacks

Ladies and gentlemen, Rev. Franklin Graham is going to save Darfur.

Now isn't that nice?

Here's the deal. Billy Graham's significantly dumber son is going to get Omar Bashir to stop slaughtering people by encouraging policy types to be nice to the dictator. Then, to top it all off, Rev. Graham is going to build or rehabilitate hundreds of churches in Sudan, through his aid group, which is of course funded by USAID.

Not bad for a man who thinks Islam is a religion of hate, intolerance and violent proselytizing. Then again, Graham the Younger's doctrine of Christianity seems to meet those criteria pretty well. Perhaps these two have more in common than they first thought back in 2003.

What's the rationale for this bold and daring plan? Why, it's the fact that Bashir signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the SPLM/A in Southern Sudan back in 2005. That apparently means that he's a reasonable man who's willing to compromise (though not reasonable enough to meet with Bill Frist, Graham's travel companion). Never mind the fact that the civil war in Southern Sudan raged for some twenty years before it was ended, or that there is some evidence that Bashir is undermining the agreement.

Thanks for the hard work, Brother Franklin! The rest of us will change course right away, by sending Bashir some lovely Valentine's cards, complete with those little heart candies with the cute messages.