UNESCO’s Comedy Central Caper
April Fool’s Day seems a fitting frame for this tale, in which TV’s Comedy Central lampooned the U.S. last month for defunding UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — after UNESCO’s nose-thumbing decision last fall to grant membership to the Palestinian Authority. Promising an “epic” expose, The Daily Show’s host, Jon Stewart, dispatched comedian John Oliver to produce a story about the big bad U.S. versus good little UNESCO. Oliver dug all the way to an interview with a UNESCO flack (or maybe the UNESCO flack dug all the way to John Oliver), who mentioned that when the U.S. pulled its funding of more than $78 million per year from UNESCO, the impoverished West African country of Gabon stepped up to pledge $2 million in solidarity with UNESCO. So, the doughty Oliver flew to Gabon, to deliver a report from the field on the generosity of the Gabonese government, and the presumed horrors that will now afflict the world if America continues to deprive Paris-based UNESCO of great stacks of U.S. tax dollars.
As comedy, it was all very entertaining: satire wrapped around the come-hither implication that beneath the laugh lies a poignant and serious piece of reportage. Noting the praise showered upon The Daily Show’s UNESCO report by an array of “journalistic outlets,” a writer for the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf, extolled the special powers of comedy writers “who take the time to understand the inside baseball” and “in the search for absurdity” see with eagle eyes the “real world consequences.”
Except, as a piece of reporting, The Daily Show’s UNESCO “epic” was a complete joke. It was UNESCO propaganda, masquerading as satire, masquerading as reporting. It had everything to do with slick repackaging of UNESCO’s own self-serving “talking points,” and almost nothing to do with the real world. This was fantasy UNESCO, and, for that matter, fantasy Gabon, all dolled up for the Comedy Central set — please check your dictators, terrorists, and spendthrift feather-bedding international bureaucrats at the door.
If Oliver actually went to Gabon at all — and from the scenery, it appears he did — there is no evidence he asked anyone there a single informed question. Oliver did not deign to inform his audience that Gabon is one of the largest oil producers in Africa, an unfree country plundered for years by the same dynastic government whose President Ali Bongo Ondimba pledged $2 million to UNESCO (and at the same UNESCO meeting, got a four-year seat on its executive board). Oliver did not mention that a Gabonese civic group had written to UNESCO’s director general, Irina Bokova, asking her to refuse the money, because Gabon’s people need it more. (Nor did Oliver wonder how it is that the poor little government of Gabon was able to come up with $6.5 million last year to purchase the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s mansion in Washington, apparently for use as a residence by Gabon’s ambassador).
For that matter, Oliver failed to note that UNESCO’s executive board recently reaffirmed a seat for Syria’s bloody dictatorship on its human rights committee, or that UNESCO’s board voted to host a $3 million self-aggrandizing prize donated by the longtime dictator of Equatorial Guinea. He also forgot to note that UNESCO spends most of its budget on its own staff, travel and operating expenses; likes to bask in business class air travel; that more than half its staffers are based in Paris; and, in the UN cosmos of overlapping, redundant and often dysfunctional bureaucracies, a great many of its ventures (“climate education,” for instance) are duplicated by other agencies. Or perhaps he simply never bothered to find out?
Compliments are due to Oliver’s skill in staging skits, which he performed so neatly that some might be mistaken for actual reporting. For instance, he included an interview with someone who appeared to be an idiot U.S. congressman, a straight man who kept trying to defend U.S. policy, and made a complete botch of it. That was staged. The interviewee, Robert Wexler, is not in Congress. He used to be, but he resigned in 2010. Yet Oliver went to Wexler for a “defense” of U.S. policy; not to any of the law-makers who might genuinely wish to defend the law in question. We might reasonably assume that when Wexler offered himself as a “congressional” target for Oliver’s ridicule, he was in on the joke.
Genuinely well-informed satire can be of great value. Ignorant buffoonery, however, is harder to defend. I don’t doubt that the Comedy Central Team meant well. But U.S. policy here is not frivolous, and it is no small matter when UNESCO, to fill its own coffers, presumes to lobby for the U.S. to change its laws — especially a law that is highly relevant today, precisely due to UNESCO’s own decisions. That is what’s going on. When UNESCO last fall became the first UN outfit to confer full membership on the Palestinian Authority, that decision triggered a U.S. law that forbids funding to any part of the UN that admits the Palestinians before they have honored their promises to negotiate peace with Israel. For UNESCO, where the U.S. had been bankrolling 22% of the regular budget, this meant the withdrawal of more than $78 million per year in U.S. funding. That’s America’s prerogative. It had the salutary effect of sending a message to other UN affiliates, thus putting the brakes on the PA’s big push last year to subvert the workings of the UN itself, where recognition of statehood is supposed to come by way of recommendation from the UN Security Council — not via an end-run at UN-related organizations.
Since then, UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova has been lobbying not for UNESCO to change its decision, but for the U.S. to scrap its law. Bokova, a Bulgarian functionary schooled in Moscow during the Cold War, has launched a propaganda blitz in the U.S., disparaging the relevant U.S. law as “outdated” and traveling to Washington to meet with U.S. law-makers. Last month, with four UNESCO staffers in her entourage, Bokova spent 12 days in the U.S., with stops in Washington, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Bokova was very busy touting UNESCO, but the biggest boost came from The Daily Show – their “epic” linked here. And in my article for The Weekly Standard, UNESCO Funny Business, some of the items that Bokova, and the comedians, left out.
Because despite the occasional bout of honesty Stewart is still just another Lefty. A little more graceful. A little more self aware. But at the end of the day just another doctrine Lefty.
I don’t doubt that the Comedy Central Team meant well.
If by well, you mean carried the liberal fascist water well, then, yes ma’am, they meant well. There is a fine line between satire and propaganda, and Comedy Central cross over into propaganda a while back. Look no further than there categorical unwillingness to have any pot shots taken at Muhammad by South Park, versus their unending stream of hatred for anything Christian.
John Stewart is a satirist like Lenny Riefenstahl is an independent film maker.
It is ironic that you attack a comedy show for not doing research, when it is obvious that you or your interns are just pulling numbers from other websites without checking out the validity of the statements. You claim that UNESCO spends “most” of its income on its administrate and operational costs. Since when does most mean 15-20%? I went ahead and looked at their budget for 2010, something you clearly did not, and found actual numbers. I was curious what a large corporation generally spends on employees and administrative costs, so I looked at Walmart’s financial report for 2010. The numbers for UNESCO and Walmart were similar, Walmart is around 18%. Would you say that Walmart is inefficient?
Anyway, you missed the point of the Daily Show piece. Even if the UNSECO is grandstanding by not changing its policy, we are still giant tools for punishing the children. Think about the children, we are punishing them, not UNSECO. You are acting like a preschooler.
Bollocks! Stop shoveling that crap and using “the children” like a mindless myrmidon. You want to help “the children” reach into your back pocket and give UNESCO money. The US government is under zero obligation to give tax payer money to the UN for anything. I sponsor two African children through the charity of MY choosing. Do the same! Don’t ask your government to funnel its money through a UN organization, that uses it for many other things than starving children, and what little does go is probably getting it siphoned off by dictators of a countries well known for their corruption.
I for one am darn glad we finally showed some backbone with these corrupt UN organizations that talk out both sides of their mouth, admitting the non-existent Palestinian state as a member was a middle finger to the US and Israel, and now they are boo hooing that there are consequences for their bluster. The prohibition of using US funds to support UN agencies that recognize the Palestinian state is also a matter of US law, signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. The money could be far better spent elsewhere.
Well said Rik. Long ago I became aware of how the (mostly) left or if you prefer progressives just love to use the children for everything. One doesn’t have to even check the numbers to know that, whenever an administration as huge as the UN/Unesco exists, most of its funds end up elsewhere than for the cause they claim to support. That is true in our own government as well, first the administration with personnel growing like mushrooms after the rain, and then way down the list is some funding for the actual mission. It is much more efficient to seek out a charity, in my case I stay local where I live, than to give to a collective where money seems to disappear with nobody knowing where to.
Geez, talk about being a preschooler, Brian, are you not yet able to read yourself?
“When UNESCO last fall became the first UN outfit to confer full membership on the Palestinian Authority, that decision triggered a U.S. law that forbids funding to any part of the UN that admits the Palestinians before they have honored their promises to negotiate peace with Israel.”
UNESCO is therefore the one punishing the children. So maybe it really cares more about something else?
And speaking further on “caring”, Brian, why do you apparently hate Israel? Are you simply not aware of the fact that Hamas has the total destruction of Israel actually written into its constitution, and that Fatah is now essentially joined at the hip with Hamas on policy? Hence the U.S. law above?
Btw, you can probably still give UNESCO your own money somehow, that is, if you still trust UNESCO. Or else maybe you might be better off finding a demonstrably real child in need right around the corner?
“Caring” sans reason is Careless. While manifesting caring per se is now considered by so-called Progressives to be essentially a “good in itself”. But don’t fall for it. Anyone can do that – and also be thereby led around by some not very good people to some very vile ends.
Now Stewart himself is fairly smart up to a relatively low limit, and “caring”. But thereafter he’s unstable. Two rather telling examples: 1] I saw it unfold, but you probably didn’t witness Stewart’s buildup to a simmer when he was on O’Reilly’s show – like something uncontrollable had suddenly taken full possession of him – culminating in his strange outburst to the effect that ~”Fox doesn’t allow other opinions.” All after O’Reilly had already featured Stewart himself on at least 4 long segments and he was scheduled to appear on even more; 2] Maybe you did witness Stewart very self-gratifyingly mocking Herman Cain for saying that a Bill could be written in a couple of paragraphs? But, therefore Brian, apparently Stewart has never read the Bill of Rights, each one of which could be a Bill, or the Amendments to the Constitution?
Beware the poorly hinged emotions.
Have you ever noticed that the poor, suffering children that corrupt organizations such as UNESCO and UNICEF profess to help are in MARXIST SOCIALIST countries?
Largely true. They have a very masterful agenda of inactivity for the piles of money that gets forked over to them by us.
Brian N: Did you think that no one would actually check out the UNESCO budget as you claimed to? There are multiple budget segments but everyone I reviewed showed well over 50% spent on “Staff”. Plus the remaining amounts were spent on “Activities” and that undoubtedly included a lot of high living on the road – at the expense of “the children”. Plus, Walmart spends only what they need to on overhead because if they spent more, competitors would eat their lunch. What allows Unesco (or any government agency) to over spend and grossly misuse funds? Ideologues like you.
Holding up children in front of you as a shield?
UNESCO’s own ethics committee found a baltant disregard for follwoing guidelines and financial procedures. 87 percent of UNESCO’s $326 million budget last year was allocated for its own staff, travel, and operating costs. More than 39% of the travel was in Business First class at an expense of 3 million dollars above and beyond regular class. More than half of UNESCO’s staffers are based in Paris, many pulling in tax-exempt six-figure salaries, with plush benefits and 30 days of vacation per year. Us idiot contractors that have worked for them are required to fly 26 hours, get four hours sleep in some strange hotel, deliver the assignment the next day and then get back on the plane. Reimbursed for them sending us to the wrong hotel? Nothing. Yet, while they already have staff in NY, the UNESCO leadership has an entourage of four people and is travling the US as we speak. Also, nice htat they hired Pelosi’s media man to handle the new propaganda push. Perhaps you want ot pay for it out of your local school funding since you are soooo concerned abou the children.
The yearly financial disclosure and ethics panel research has been delayed by senior officials. Maybe you should wait til them. Meanwhile, go back to the financial report and carve out the travle costs including those burried in the individual contracts and projects.
How about the children in Sderot who can’t go to school because the so-called “Palestine” is shooting missles at their schools (one hit recently)?
It was too much to ask for that a leftist like Jon Stewart could actually be pro-Israel. He had me fooled by that bit with Bibi.
Claudia-
-you are the wrong about the UNESCO financials–please correct ASAP
-such false reporting on your part negates your credibility.
Jon Stewart is an entertainer–like Rush–Claudia is now in the same category-fine
They do not pretend to be credible journalist, accountants nor foreign policy gurus.
PJM deserves better from its employees than this
Victor, what’s your deal? You say she is wrong but offer no support for that at all. If anything she was too easy on them. Go look at their statements and you will see that very little of what they spend actually goes to “the children”. And these are their statements – imagine if an impartial accounting firm prepared them!
Look it’s Jon Stewart an idiot Leftist (more in a mo’), it’s a comedy show; with about as much credibility as Rush Limbaugh, and about as much seriousness ie none.
Stewart as I have pointed out here before, broadcast a whitewash of Hamas and dishonest anti-Israel piece to his Jew-hate audience back during the Gaza war of 2008/9, it was nothing but anti-Jewish garbage that catered to the worst of the anti-Semitic Left, with Stewart calling the lie-about-Israel-and-run-cover-for-Pali-terrorist US media one-sided in favour of Israel. Galling was the least of it. Stewart at his ‘restore sanity [sic] rally’ featured Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam, the same Yusuf Islam that called for the death of Salman Rushdie. When Rushdie called Stewart to object, Stewart brushed him off. Stewart dropped his last name, Leibowitz for the reason the late Andrew Breitbart pointed out, he’s so ashamed of it.
PJM contributors can’t it appears be bothered to do basic research on Stewart (whenever they write about him), ever. Or maybe they don’t think anything I mention above matters at all (like the fact that he’s a self-hating Jew).
Sooo naturally he’s going to sympathise with the Jew-hating jihad enabling UN, like duh.
AMEN, Larry!
Thanks for the reminders!
Some people accept and embrace the Truth, while others simply block it out and refuse to give it any quarter. Incredibly, the Bible–once again–explains this: Ecclesiastes 10:2-3.
Personally, I believe that Limbaugh has more credibility than Stewart, and definitely more seriousness. I suspect your disrespect for Limbaugh has more to do with his lack of constant attention to Israeli/Palestinian issues than to his “credibility”. Americans have other things to be concerned about besides only Israel.
no jarmo, it’s because he doesn’t know anything about anything much at all – economics, US domestic issues across the board. He just spouts off with emotion and knee-jerk partisanship, there is no substance and depth to anything he says. I don’t want him to talk about Israel and the Middle-East, he wouldn’t know what he’s talking about, as with everything else. He’s like the twin of Michael Moore, just on the other side.
It’s as easy to document him playing fast and loose with the facts as it is Michael Moore.
Larry, much of politics is “emotional”. Three examples:
1. Where is it stated that insurance companies must provide contraceptives to college students….or, if you don’t it’s a “war on women”? It’s not in the constitution nor in economics textbooks of any kind. Why would anyone need “substance and depth” to argue for or against?
2. The same can be argued about the Solyndra expose. The Greens argue that government needs to “invest” in future technology and risks of corruption are unfortunate but acceptable… if we don’t try, we lose. The other side argues that Solyndra is a consequence of of too much government money available for questionable payback, etc., etc., etc. Why does anyone need “substance and depth” to debate for corruption or against?
3. Keystone pipeline….Limbaugh argues the no-brain logic that the pipeline will provide jobs, jobs, jobs, more oil available for U.S., etc. Obama argues that Nebraska has not approved the line, that water safety issues are still being addressed, etc.
Limbaugh does not attempt to teach economic theory. He is good at debating issues in the news. I have no idea what you consider substance and depth. He is basically an entertainer commenting on political issues. Many of his arguments are no different than those presented by authors in PJM. His style may be bombastic, which you obviously find irritating, but his arguments support conservatism. But I think Limbaugh is better informed than Jon Stewart.
OK, you’re posting from our equivalent of Manhattan, so I’m not surprised that you attack Rush Limbaugh, a man who was done more for Israel and the Jewish people than almost anyone.
Jon Stewart fooled a lot of people, myself included, by his bit with Bibi. (I am no fan of Bibi, but he does know how to defend us. Besides, why shouldn’t they attack him just because he is an easy target? He has tremendous influence.
There are daily reminders of why we need to get out of the UN (and vice versa) if anyone is willing to dig for the information.
Personally, I’ve little respect for Stewart and none at all for the UN kleptocracy or (particularly) UNESCO which advocates that nations should have absolute control of the ingress and egress of information across their borders…Anyone stupid enoug to endose or support the organization deserves totalitarianism.
Jon Stewart is a stealth anti-Israel activist. One way his influence could be diminshed is by workplaces blocking access to “The Daily Pravda”. That way lost productivity could be recovered. I would like to bill employees who waste their time during work on Jon Stewart to reimburse their employers
I do not get it. Did I vote Republican in 2010 in order to see our tax dollars going to god-knows -how-many antiamerican marxist organizations, such as Unesco and the Climate Change Club? Where are Boehner and Cantor on this?
Yes, sir, you did. And you’ll probably do it again when you pull the lever for Mitt “Progressive Nationalist” Romney.
– blubbered like a crybaby on September 12.