Today’s Hugo Chavez ‘stemwinder’ at the UN – which saw the Venezuelan Mussolini wannabe calling Bush Satan, replete with sulphurous fumes, while waving around a tome by Noam Chomsky – was certainly a plus for both subjects … Bush, already recovering in the polls, gets a further boost from the thug’s almost comical attack (“Live in New York… it’s Hugo Chavez!”) and the the multi-millionaire marxiste gets another goose to his already copious book sales. [Will there be Chomsky t-shirts a la Che?-ed. Nah, not good-looking enough.]
The big loser was, of course, the United Nations, not the least because Chavez was saluted for his efforts by a hearty round of applause. As I have written numerous times on this blog, I am a supporter of the UN. (That is why I was so outraged by Oil-for-Food.) But now I wonder if it’s salvageable as do, no doubt, many Americans whose tax dollars provide the primary support for what looks increasingly like a social club for sociopaths (Chavez, Ahmadinejad) and kleptocrats (Chirac, Kofi and the whole Oil-for-Food crowd.) What started out as a great liberal idea has turned into an almost perfectly reactionary institution – a common metamorphosis, alas. And after this change, as is also often common, an entirely new class has risen up to protect the institution and its perquisites. The question confronting us now is how to break this pattern.
UPDATE: Claudia Rosett – who, as we know, is a close student of the UN – may have found the answer. [Certainly makes sense to me.-ed. For once we agree.]
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