Tilting at the NY Times windmill

Taking issue with the NY Times editorial page is rather like the story of the little boy who kept digging into the sand at the beach, but periodically would have to take a small pail, bail out the water in the hole, and dump the water into the ocean.

It's a never-ending and probably fruitless mission.

But it's raining outside, the weather is cooler, and what else have we got to do except watch Ted, Chucky, Joey and Arlen preen before the cameras at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings?

Today's gripe/swipe at the NYT? It's editorial on the "Lost U.N. Summit Meeting." The Times has lost circulation in its lower extremities because its undergarments are still all tight and twisty over the recess appointment of John Bolton.

A once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform and revive the United Nations has been squandered even before the opening gavel comes down this morning for the largest assemblage of world leaders ever brought together in a single location. The responsibility for this failure is widely shared. But the United States, as the host nation and the U.N.'s most indispensable and influential member, bears a disproportionate share.

Naturally. According to the Times, the U.S. should always bear a disproportionate share of everything, but chiefly any blame and all bills.

There are several casualties of this failure of leadership, including the need to reform the United Nations and to strengthen its role as a monitor of human rights. But the most tragic loss is a genuine opportunity to help the one billion people around the world who each live on less than $1 a day.

Sounds like one billion people who know how to budget. (Sorry, just kidding.) But seriously, folks, we already know the NYT remedy: let the American taxpayers buy lunch for the world.

Let's say that lunch in the Third World costs $1. That should mean a billion dollars a day, or $365 billion a year, right? Wrong. It means $5 billion a day, or $1.825 trillion a year, because you have to funnel the lunch money through a corrupt United Nations where you're lucky to get 20 cents on the dollar in actual results. And we're being extremely generous.

But let's get back to the real reason for the summit: institutional reform. Here the Times goes nuts over its disdain over Bolton:

Last month, President Bush used a recess appointment to send his notoriously undiplomatic, and Congressionally unacceptable, choice for ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, to New York. He contended that contrary to all appearances and to common sense, Mr. Bolton was just the man to achieve the reforms the United Nations needed. Almost immediately, Mr. Bolton began proving Mr. Bush wrong by insisting on a very long list of unilateral demands.

Forget that any suggested improvements in the agenda from any nation are always unilateral in nature. And nevermind that Bolton was pointing out the various and sundry ways the U.N. was getting ready to shaft the U.S. and other free world nations.

It is also disingenuous to complain that Bolton waited until too late in the process of preparing for the summit before spring his list of suggested revisions, when the NYT was cheerleading the Democratic liberals in Congress in their months-long blockade of a vote on Bolton's nomination. While Congress was failing to act, John Bolton was preparing for business.

But next comes this howler:

The predictable effect was to transform what had been a painful and difficult search for workable diplomatic compromises into a competitive exercise in political posturing. (Emphasis DTO)

In context with the U.N., the phrase "workable diplomatic compromise" is synonymous with the phrase "America gets screwed."

The Times is sad that Secretary General Kofi Annan and his successors are not going to be given more power to act (shall we say unilaterally?) in determining who administers aid programs. Yeah, that Kofi Annan is one hell of a reformer. He'll reform you right out of billions of dollars, cry about the loss, and promise another new round of reforms.

As a result of John Bolton's interference, the editorial moans, "tens of thousands of needless deaths from extreme poverty" will occur.

Even assuming this was true (and we do not), contrast that to tens of millions who have died as the result of U.N. waste, mismanagement and encouragement of repressive regimes that deny freedom and opportunity to a great portion of the planet.

The U.N. is worthless. The NYT is well on its way to the same status.