Meet Mohamed Nasheed, New Look President of the sun-kissed Republic of the Maldives. He’s the Sarah Palin of the Indian Ocean, getting big play talking about selling his evil bad guy predecessor’s yacht on EBay.
Eventually we learned she hadn’t sold her predecessor’s jet on EBay at all, but for a loss elsewhere. And he’s been elected since October with no action.
Nasheed defeated a not nice person, Maumoon Gayoom, who indeed ran a repressive kleptocracy of which the boat and a presidential island retreat were symbols. But live by the symbol, die by the symbol.
Plain spoken Mr. Nasheed has gotten a lot of mileage as well from refusing the tacky gold-inflicted presidential palace Gayoom built.
But Nasheed has instead moved into the former Sultan’s palace, no slum.
If the Maldives ever gets around to selling the boat they may find the economic tide against them. When Iraq finally got title to a Saddam yacht which surfaced in Europe they hauled it back to Basra for lack of a buyer.
David Plouffe Shocked To Learn Oil Oligarchy Controversial 
…To Donate Speaking Fee To The Oppressed
The Wall Street Journal reports that Barack Obama campaign wizard David Plouffe meant no offense in consorting with dictators, will donate his honorarium to some of those done to by the Aliyev clan.
Plouffe is on the ground in Baku, where his comments after a closed door speech gave no hint he’d be giving up the cash.
The oil-soaked region is so blessed that even tourism materials feature gas flaring. 
David Plouffe: Let The Eagle Soar 
Barack Obama campaign wizard David Plouffe appears to be following the well worn path of other political advisers: make your name in America, then make a killing advising foreign tyrants on prettying up.
Plouffe is traveling to Azerbaijan to meet second generation oil despot and President Ilham Aliyev. 
Poppy was a Brezhnev crony and KGB general reborn after the Soviet Union’s dissolution as maximum leader of the Caspian kleptocracy, and sonny Aliyev currently presides, with his fetching wife Mehriban. 
It’s a land of enchantment. At home the Azerbaijanis enjoy 
a cult of personality built around former President Heydar Aliyev and fixed elections, 
while abroad the Aliyev’s enjoy collecting pictures of themselves with world leaders from Bushes 
to Clinton 
to Belorussian Strongman Alexancer Lukashenko.
Hiring Plouffe would be a step up for the Aliyevs. A previous thrust for swankiness entailed renting out Mount Vernon to try and link the Father Of Their Country to George Washington, an event graced by the presence of Bush family Consiliari James Baker.
I Ever Tell You The One… 
Proud Libra and Ramallahh resident, Palestinian-American blogger Sam Bahour is doing his part to bridge the gap, bringing the two [or more!] sides together by recycling yet again a Bush Library Classic Joke we’ve all so enjoyed over the years.
Taking time from the “Territories” day to day occupation grind, EPalestine can’t resist the musty rib-tickler which begins…
“The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations.”
I get 34,000 Google hits for this one. Your results may very.
Desert Foxy 
There is a special moment in every president’s life when the Saudi check for his presidential library arrives. But Ronald Reagan did better than that.
New Mideast tell-all A World of Trouble is packed with important revelations, but for our purposes the story that matters is about a man and a horse. Or several. And a briefcase full of diamonds.
Author Patrick Tyler shows Ronald Reagan scheming to keep two horses given him by our gallant Saudi allies, plotting with then [and current Bush] White House Counsel Fred Fielding to hide them on a neighbor’s ranch. The law required the president to donate the horses to the public.
Tyler points to a previously published excerpt from Reagan’s diaries confirming the scheme:
Nancy got $2 million dollars of diamonds, stashed at Harry Winston.
Reagan was endlessly photographed with his horse “El Alamein,” which Reagan received while in office from distinguished side-burn wearer 
and Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo.
How the horse was snuck past the lawyers is not known.
How all this squared with Reagan’s legendary rules to live by is also unknown.
“Reagan kept several horses at the ranch stable. He made sure that the Secret Service horses ate from separate hay troughs, because he did not want American taxpayers paying for his own horses feed. “
