Well, this is a surprise. Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has unexpectedly failed in his bid to lead UNESCO. A dark horse candidate, Bulgaria's Irina Bokova came from behind to edge him out 31-27. Greece and Spain even voted for the Egyptian, but he still lost. Given his assertion that he wanted to burn Jewish books in Egyptian libraries, I can't say it's an undeserved defeat, but it's a surprise nevertheless. Bokova will be the first woman to head the organisation, and as far as I know, hasn't yet publicly called for any books to be burned, or singled out any race or religion for condemnation. That already makes her infinitely superior to the favored candidate. However, she's not without problems.

"Those who dislike communism in this country are not happy about her promotion," Ivo Indzhev, a Bulgarian political blogger, said, quoted in the New York Times. "For people in this region, her appointment sends the message that the West can swallow someone’s communist past very easily but can’t abide an Arab who is anti-Israel."
Hmmm ... so communist vs book burning anti-Semite. I can see why the voting was so close with two such well suited candidates to head a cultural organization. After all, it's the Arabs and the communists who have been producing most of the worlds cultural output in modern times.
Egyptian weekly Al-Ahrar wrote on its front page about "a ferocious campaign against him by the American administration, under Jewish pressure".
Yes, again, I can see how the Obama regime would have liked the Egyptian candidate, ... but let's face it, a communist is always going to trump an anti-Semite with the Obama crowd. They could no sooner repudiate a communist than Obama could repudiate his grandmother, or something like that.
[Update] Some further digging reveals some interesting things. Despite the Egyptians wanting to blame it all on an American-Zionist conspiracy:
President Mubarak of Egypt had refused US and European entreaties to offer another candidate. "Any other Egyptian would have been fine," an American official lamented. Mr Hosni apologised last summer for his book-burning remark and Israel did not not oppose him.
Oh, so if it wasn't the Americans, or even the Israelis, who the heck was it who successfully worked to keep the book-burner out of UNESCO?
French intellectuals kept up a campaign against him yesterday with a new accusation that, as a Rome-based diplomat, he had shielded Palestinian terrorists in 1985 after they murdered an American tourist in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro liner.
French intellectuals? French intellectuals? French intellectuals? French intellectuals using the accusation that he aided the murderer of an American? The French fighting and winning? Huh???????? Yes, you got it, it was freaking French intellectuals!!! And that's a pretty interesting allegation too... though of course, the Obama administration wouldn't care about that. Heck, what's the bet Obama has never even heard of the Achille Lauro? What with his inability to remember his close relationship with ACORN, I figure he must be suffering early on-set Alzheimers or something. And people thought Reagan was bad with his "I don't recalls".

There's still more:

Catherine Colonna, the French Ambassador to Unesco, was said by diplomats to have disobeyed President Sarkozy's orders and voted for Ms Bokova.
What is the world coming to? I guess the French have just got so used to being the anti-USA, that now the US government is fulfilling the role of being the world's socialist surrender monkeys, that they better do something different, like show some fight, and show some honor, and what's more, to win. Truly an amazing turn of events. Whatever next?