WE Blog

U.N. deputy Mark Malloch Brown (in photo) sharply criticized the United States in a speech this week for undermining the United Nations. Rather than seek constructive, middle-ground reforms, U.S. diplomats encourage critics such as Rush Limbaugh to take potshots at the United Nations without any acknowledgment of how much America needs the U.N., he said. “To acknowledge an America reliant on international institutions is not perceived to be good politics at home,” Brown said.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which previously has praised Brown, wasn’t happy. It responded in an editorial Friday: “We weren’t previously aware that it’s considered appropriate for international civil servants to speak this way about a U.N. member state that pays nearly a quarter of his $287,000 tax-free salary. And we were a little surprised by the absence of any reference in the speech to Oil for Food, sex abuse by U.N. peacekeepers, last year’s arrests of two U.N. officials on bribery charges and the suspension earlier this year of eight top U.N. officials allegedly involved in various procurement scams.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote of an experience that many Wichita parents have had recently, too: going to a commencement ceremony and being struck by the “stunning diversity — race, religion, ethnicity — of the graduating class.” Diversity has become a bad word lately, but Friedman sees it as reason for optimism: “America is still the world’s greatest human magnet. We are not the only country that embraces diversity, but there is something about our free society and free market that still attracts people like no other. Our greatest asset is our ability to still cream off not only the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world but the low-skilled-high-aspiring ones as well, and that is the main reason that I am not yet ready to cede the 21st century to China. Our Chinese will still beat their Chinese.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman