President George W. Bush of the United States and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran will join a queue of world leaders in New York this week to deliver canned speeches before the Annual Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. And even though none of them will say anything of any consequence (Do they ever?), it would be remiss of me not to comment on this august gathering.
Unfortunately, the only thing worth commenting on is the fact that John McCain has seized this opportunity for his VP nominee, Sarah Palin, to get a crash course in foreign relations by meeting with as many of heads of state as possible … for the first time.
And if you think this seems a rather naive and contrived approach, bear in mind that McCain declared Palin the most qualified person to serve as his VP after meeting her only once.
The McCain campaign’s slogan is ‘country first’. If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat from the presidency?
[David Frum, President George W Bush’s former speech-writer]
Conspicuously absent from Palin’s agenda, however, are meetings with leaders of the world’s two other superpowers, namely, China and Russia. Of course, this is probably because she feels she already knows enough about America’s bilateral relations with them based on the claim that she’s been able to see their respective countries from her kitchen window in Alaska all her life….
But, to his credit, McCain made sure that Palin will have a meet and greet with rock star Bono, which every head of state knows is the only way to seem relevant in this celebrity-obsessed world.
UPDATE
Today at 4:31 EST: This morning, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the entire Iranian delegation sat in the General Assembly and listened respectfully as President Bush delivered his UN address.
Unfortunately, in yet another demonstration of the petulant and arrogant nature of America’s attitude towards the world, this afternoon, the entire US delegation made a point of walking out of the General Assembly just as Ahmadinejad was about to deliver his address.
I won’t even question why every US president seems to think himself too important to sit on these occasions to pay reciprocal respect to any other world leader. But that Bush did not see fit to even have the US Ambassador to the UN show Ahmadinejad this respect is inexcusable and says more about America’s imperiousness than it does about Iran’s defiance.
That said, it would have been perfectly understandable if all western diplomats listening to Ahmadinejad sermonize about God’s purpose for mankind had decided to take off their translation earpieces to spare themselves his sanctimonious and hackneyed screed.
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