Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan, among others, are Elders apparently and are out to save the world. Having solved the problem of discrimination against women – without mentioning Islam – they are about to focus their gaze on the Middle East; no doubt all strife and dissent with wither before the blinding light of their collective intelligence. In other words, look out Israel, you are in for another bashing.

“The Elders” are coming to the Middle East, ostensibly bringing wise diplomatic counsel, but actually are likely to deliver yet another ultimatum to Israel.

A brainchild of British billionaire and gadfly Richard Branson, “The Elders” are ostensibly a wise junta of “eminent global leaders” bringing “their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.”

Naturally, Jimmy Carter is an Elder.  So too is retired South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Irish President Mary Robinson, former Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, former Marxist Mozambican first lady (and later wife to Nelson Mandela) Graca Machel, and former Norwegian Premier Gro Bruntland, along with several other Third World luminaries and global justice advocates, all of whom are left of center.

These Elders generally advocate a flavorless globaloney approach to the world, usually guided by all the usual bromides echoing among the bureaucracies of the United Nations, the European Union, most NGO’s, Ivy League universities, and left-leaning philanthropies like Ford, Rockefeller, and Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation.  The Elders seem to draw their oxygen, stale though it is, from a self-enclosed phalanx of these mutually re-enforcing chattering societies.