Update on Bolton at Turtle Bay

In its initial conception, the UN was to be a deliberative body capable of developing negotiated resolutions to international solutions. Now, after fifty years of decay, the UN General Assembly is only a vehicle for the conveyance of Third World kleptocrats to New York City, whence they come to dine, dance and damn the very country that acts as their host.

Now, the UN is seeking to recreate its role as an international arbiter of international disputes. That site set, the United States is the clear target of the UN's "Draft Outcome Document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly of September, 2005"—not a meeting to which U.S. representatives were privy.

The plan would commit the U.S. to "meeting all commitments and obligations under the Kyoto Protocol"; to "maintain a moratorium on nuclear-test explosions pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and call upon all States to sign and ratify"; and authorize "the commencement, without delay, of negotiations on... effective measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space"—all policies that the President has firmly rejected. The UN Outcome Document also mandates a global tax and a United Nations army.

More UN-nik pie in the sky? Well, the strategy undertaken by Kofi Annan & Co. to overcome any U.S. "reticence" was to present this package to Mr. Bush as a little September surprise at a special summit meeting slated for next month. After all, he couldn't refuse to sign without looking the part of the much-maligned "cowboy president," could he?

Enter John Bolton. When Ambassador Bolton got wind of the document, the roof was razed at Turtle Bay—thank heavens for that. If ever a U.S. President needed tenacity in an ambassador to the UN, it's now. We hope Mr. Bolton's recess appointment becomes a fixed reality in the coming congressional term.

---The Fedralist Patriot