Rachel Maddow's self-proclaimed "obsessive" devotion to the truth again proves fickle.
As an example of what she sees as the resurgence of wedge issues, Maddow said this on her MSNBC show last night --
The culture war era conspiracy theories about black helicopters and a one-world government secretly pursued by America's elites, that stuff is back from the culture war eras too. The new Republican head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee convened the first hearing of that committee this week. What's the topic? Get the US out of the UN!
To back up Maddow's hypercaffeinated claim (she tends to talk in italics), an article titled "House Republicans' next target: the United Nations" from Foreign Policy magazine was shown on the screen. Awkwardly absent from the actual article was any mention of what Maddow claimed.
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Here's how the article reads --
The new GOP leadership in the House is promising to aggressively confront the Obama administration on a full range of foreign policy issues. Now, it has reopened the debateover the performance and reform of the United Nations.
"Policy on the United Nations should be based on three fundamental questions: Are we advancing the American interests? Are we upholding American values? Are we being responsible stewards for the American taxpayer dollars?" read the opening statement by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) at Tuesday's committee briefing on the U.N. "Unfortunately, right now, the answer to all three questions is no."
Ros-Lehtinen, born in Havana, is the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress, according to her online bio. Do you think Maddow would have neglected to mention that were Ros-Lehtinen a Democrat?
More from the Foreign Policy article --
Ros-Lehtinen, who didn't attend the hearing because she was in Florida tending to her ill mother, criticized several instances of alleged poor corruption at the U.N. in her statement. She railed against the Human Rights Council (HRC), a U.N. organization the Obama administration joined, as "a rogue's gallery dominated by human rights violators who use it to ignore real abuses and instead attack democratic Israel instead."
She promised to introduce legislation that would withhold U.S. contributions to the U.N. until reforms bear fruit. A previous version of her bill would withhold all funding from the HRC and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which distributes aid to Palestinian refugees.
Apparently it isn't just Republicans on the committee with qualms about U.N. operations. Here's what former chair Howard Berman, Democrat of California, had to say, according to Foreign Policy --
"The flaws, shortcomings and outrages of the United Nations, both past and present, are numerous and sometimes flagrant," he said, citing the HRC, the Oil for Food Scandal; sexual violence perpetrated by U.N. peacekeepers in Africa, and problems at the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). But Berman argued that withholding contributions would only lessen U.S. influence there and hasn't worked in the past."
Maddow's reaction to "sexual violence perpetrated by U.N. peacekeepers"? Shrug. Only if the victims were gay Ugandans would it pique her interest.
Back to the Foreign Policy article, including criticism of an HRC official by Obama appointee Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. --
Next to speak at the hearing was Hillel Neuer, the director of an organization called U.N. Watch, which monitors U.N. action on human rights and Israel-related issues. He compared the HRC to "a jury that includes murderers and rapists, or a police force run in large part by suspected murderers and rapists who are determined to stymie investigation of their crimes," and, "the council's machinery of fact-finding missions exists almost solely to attack Israel."
Neuer also drew attention to statements by the HRC Special Rapporteur Richard Falk that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job done with the knowledge of the U.S. government, comments Ambassador Susan Rice called "so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position."
The Foreign Policy article also notes that the United States "is responsible for 22 percent of the U.N.'s annual operating budget, which comes to about $516 million in fiscal 2011," and "also responsible for 27 percent of the U.N.'s peacekeeping budget, which comes to about $2.18 billion this year."
Ever notice how liberals love criticizing America for comprising only five percent of the world's population while consuming a quarter of its energy? Funny how they never complain about Americans paying nearly a quarter of the U.N.'s budget while representing that same far smaller share of the world's people. Even funnier what liberals say in response to legitimate criticism of the United Nations.
