Something else is still bugging me about President Obama’s already commented upon (here) performance yesterday at the United Nations: the president said that the attack on U.S. diplomatic property in Libya—which left four Americans, including our ambassador, dead—was an assault against the values of the United Nations.
Yeah, sure, the U.N. was founded on idealistic notions, some of which may even be vaguely recalled by the high-living thugs who now populate Turtle Bay. An American president should be more interested in upholding American values, however. As for U.N. values, Andrew Malcolm nails what that not-very-august body stands for today:
Which is, in reality, that thousands of diverse peoples from many lands can come together in New York annually and live far better on government money than they could back home, that they can use their diplomatic immunity to park luxury vehicles illegally wherever they want in the crowded city free of adverse consequences.
And that in return, they must talk to death almost any human problem imaginable, firm in the knowledge that the stolid grumps from Russia and/or China will use their veto to stop them from doing anything of substance virtually without fail.
Our president should have been absolutely enraged that Americans were killed, that the values of the greatest nation in history were assaulted. That one of the killed was a diplomat, a heretofore sacrosanct position, even among barbarians, makes the attacks all the more insulting to our country. Our president should be more dedicated to upholding American values than telling thugs that killing Americans is an affront to their values, which, in many cases, simply isn't true. Part of protecting Americans consists in letting those who would harm us know that, if they dare, there will be hell to pay.
It must be clear to most people by now that the Obama policy in the Middle East is in collapse, and yet the administration stubbornly refuses to face reality. Either because they are naïve or because they can’t afford to admit failure this close to an election, the president persists in acting as if he he can coax radicals into being nice by saying that–tsk, tsk–they aren't living up to the U.N.'s values.
It's impossible to know if the president's weak response is a failure of perception or a simple refusal to admit it when he is wrong. Signs point to the latter. A report by Eli Lake on the Daily Beast indicates that U.S. officials knew within 24 hours that the Libyan attack that took the life of four Americans, including our ambassador, was the work of terrorists.
Yet the administration sent U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to the Sunday talk shows to say just the opposite. Rice claimed, though the administration by then knew differently, that the attacks in Libya were a response to an anti-Islam video that just got out of hand. It is also beginning to appear that the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens was aware of the terrorist threat to his life, something that should have caused the State Department to beef up security in Libya.
Somebody once said a diplomat is somebody sent abroad to lie for his country. But Ms. Rice, unless the administration was withholding the truth from her, was lying to her country.
But here is the good news: in doing so, she was upholding a value practiced daily at that corrupt and expensive body known as the United Nations.
Hat tip: Hot Air