Tim Murphy

Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor is currently on trial for war crimes in Paris. That's only to be expected, given his record. What was wasn't entirely expected was the revelation in January that Taylor once tried to give a rough-cut diamond to British supermodel Naomi Campbell when the two were in South Africa for a charity event hosted by Nelson Mandela. Making things even more awkward: Taylor was re-gifting a "conflict diamond" that had been given to him by the government of Sierra Leone. Not since Kim Jong-Il asked Madeleine Albright to be his pen pal has a despot struck out so spectacularly.

According to the prosecution, Campbell was offered the diamond by Taylor's goons in the middle of the night, and told fellow guest Mia Farrow about the incident the next morning. (Taylor, not surprisingly, denies the whole thing.) The testimony was eventually discarded by the judges as "prejudicial" hearsay, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's inaccurate. Nonetheless, the story raises more questions than it answers: For instance, what kind of charity event includes Charles Taylor? And what did they talk about at dinner? Chalk this one up to bad luck, but Campbell has built an impressive resume as the King Leopold of the celebrity recolonization of Africa. In the last decade she's promised to help Kenya's impoverished people by building a hotel for billionaires on an endangered turtle habitat (but only if they built a better airport). She's also promised a modelling school in East Africa, and a rehab center.

Campbell's not the only celebrity running amuck in Africa, though. In the March/April issue of MoJo, senior editor Dave Gilson delved into the growing celebrity presence on the continent. He put together an interactive map, which, in this fact-checker's opinion, is kind of awesome. Some of the activism is pretty commendable, some of it not so much (see Hilton, Paris). But don't take my word for it; give it a look. As for the Campbell story, you can read the transcript here (pdf). The crazy stuff begins on page 89.

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Earlier Nick Baumann highlighted the Winston Group's new survey about the Tea Party, which revealed that Tea Partiers are largely old, white, male, and—get this!—conservative. No kidding. But taking a closer look at the Winston Group study—and a similar set of numbers released today by Gallup—I noticed something kind of funny: Considering the movement purports to counter the perceived "socialism" of his policies, President Obama is actually quite popular among the Tea Partiers. According to the Winston Group, 17 percent of Tea Partiers approve of the job Obama has been doing. Another 15 percent approve of the job Congressional Democrats have been doing, which, while not exactly a ringing endorsement, makes Democrats considerably more popular among Tea Partiers than Republicans. There's a similar quirk in the Gallup poll: A whopping 12 percent of Tea Partiers believe the Affordable Care Act was a "good thing." Merlin's pants!

What could Tea Partiers possibly like about Obama? That's the obvious mystery here, but I'm willing to speculate a little bit. Since much of the movement's messaging is built on a steady flow of misinformation, it's only natural that a lot of Tea Partiers are going to have difficulty sorting out the heroes and villains. For example: When I attended a Tea Party Express rally in Nevada last month, I spoke with a man who had come "to send a message to Harry Reid." His grievance? He blamed Reid for shortchanging a proposal for a high-speed rail line from Las Vegas to Anaheim (instead, trains will stop in Victorville, California, 100 miles from LA, which admittedly is kind of lame). The Vegas-Anaheim line would have been great for Nevadans, he explained to me. And he was probably right. But that very idea was also lampooned by Republicans at the time as a "magnetic levitation line" from "Sin City" to "Disneyland."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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