President Obama plans to chair a meeting of the UN Security Council this Thursday in New York. The Obama administration has been at pains to point out that this is historic — something that in the 65-year history no American President has ever done.
Unfortunately, there are good reasons why American presidents have not done this, and there are plenty of reasons why Obama should not do it now. It is both demeaning to the U.S. presidency, and dangerous to America. Obama was elected to represent and protect the interests of the United States, not to bargain away U.S. interests for a chance to personally bang the gavel at the crooked councils of the UN.
As promised in my post yesterday on Obama’s Extremely Historic Plans for the UN, here’s a link to my article today in the Philadelphia Inquirer on “A bad idea for a photo op,” explaining why Obama ought to leave the security-council chairing to his ambassador, Susan Rice.
Leave it to Agent Zero. He does not want anyone
from outside the United States to come to the aid of those Americans whose contempt and enmity he has earned.
We wind up with a closed world, because of the intolerance of those who preach tolerance. There is no room for what they do not want to countenance. It is their loss that this is in their blind spot.
Personally I haven’t noticed that that which is “demeaning to the U.S. presidency, and dangerous to America” is all that disagreeable to Obama.
I’m pretty sure that his interests and priorities lie elsewhere.