Sometimes you just have to roll your eyes in wonder.
The General Assembly of the United Nations voted this week to elect
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann as its new president. Readers with a long
memory will recall Father D’Escoto (he’s a Catholic priest) as
Nicaragua’s foreign minister during the Sandinista regime of the 1980s.
He’s also the winner of the 1985 Lenin Prize. Only at the U.N. does
that count as a recommendation.Speaking after his election, Father d’Escoto called for greater
"democracy" at the U.N. – an odd remark coming from a former servant of
a communist dictatorship.
Hey, let’s make it a two-fer!
The U.N. also voted to name the government of Burma – which otherwise
has been busy preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching hundreds
of thousands of its own needy victims of last month’s devastating
cyclone – as one of the Assembly’s vice presidents. Only at the U.N. is
this not considered an embarrassment.
And some people still wonder why confidence in the UN by the U.S. public is at an all-time low. Perhaps the UN needs a pre-employment test like many companies have, except that a couple other questions would be added.