UN-Funny

“Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” is the winner of Michael Kinsley’s famous contest for the most boring headline, but a close second for soporific effect would have to be any lede that begins with “News out of the U.N. today. . .” To be sure, the U.S. is apparently going to capitulate to the UN’s latest two minutes of hate drill against Israel. It’s almost as if Andrew Young had got his old job back.
But then there’s a chance the UN might be hornswoggled into passing a resolution congratulating the Pittsburgh Steelers on winning the Super Bowl, given how close people there seem to pay attention to details. A few days ago India’s foreign minister was three minutes into a UN Security Council speech someone else had given three days before, and he had to be interrupted by another Indian diplomat and told to start over again with the correct speech.
According to an account in the Indian newspaper The Dawn, “The faux pas was one that did not create much consternation amongst delegates as many speeches on the subjects were similar and the differences were technical language which only experienced diplomats could comprehend.” Hmm, what kind of “technical language” might this be? The story provides a hint: “But before reading again Mr Krishna asked, from where? Mr Puri pointed at the paragraph which read ‘Mahatma Gandhi, the father of our nation, said that poverty is the worst form of violence.'” Yeah–that sounds pretty forbiddingly technical to me. What would we do without diplomats.
The story didn’t seem to get any American media coverage outside a squib on the Fox News “Grapevine.” But it does put me in a frame of mind to recall the single best thing Lyndon Johnson ever said: “The UN couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if you printed the instructions on the heel.”
UPDATE: I’m being a bit–but only a bit–flip here. Anne Bayefsky offers the definitive beatdown on the UN’s latest perfidy and moral bankruptcy with regard to both Israel and the Arab world.
I am amazed that the American news media is making so little of the assault on CBS reporter Lara Logan. It did not matter to the mob at all whether she was actually Jewish (she’s not , for the record); but to the Arab world that thinks Jews control America and the American media, it doesn’t matter. Every American you can rough up is a proxy for Jews. All Americans need to understand: We’re all from Jerusalem now. (I’m an Orthodox Christian, FWIW.)

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