ANOTHER OBAMA BLUNDER, OR DISGRACE, TAKE YOUR PICK - AT 7:34 P.M. ET:  The great Anne Bayefsky, whose reports from the UN put the mainstream media to shame, reports on a new Obama stunt that is bound to diminish us as a nation even further:

Looking for a quick and easy boost in the polls, President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation: the United Nations. On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council.

No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body. But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Qaddafi — who is expected to be seated five seats to Obama’s right — will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer that the perilous state of the nation’s economy, the health-care fiasco, and a summer of “post-racial” scapegoating will pale by comparison.

But...

Unfortunately, however, the move represents one of the most dangerous diplomatic ploys this country has ever seen. The president didn’t just decide to chair a rare council summit; he also set the September 24 agenda — as is the prerogative of the state holding the gavel for the month. His choice, in the words of American UN Ambassador Susan Rice, speaking on September 2 at her first press briefing since the United States assumed the council presidency, is this: “The session will be focused on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any specific countries.”

Not on any specific countries?  Well, of course.  Each country has its own narrative.  One is as good as the other. 

This is no trivial technicality. The linguistic formula, which Obama’s confrere Qaddafi will undoubtedly exploit, shamelessly panders to Arab and Muslim states...It is also a frequent tool of those whose real goal is to stymie America’s defenses.

And...

The problem is that this feel-good experience will feel best of all to Iran, which has interpreted Obama’s penchant for form over substance to be a critical weakness. As a Tehran newspaper close to the regime snickered in July: “Their strategy consists of begging us to talk with them.”

Finally...

Even allied council members France and the United Kingdom are reported to be very unhappy with Obama’s no-names strategy for his September rollout.

Far from bolstering his flagging image, the president’s group-hug theory of diplomacy deserves the disdain of anyone who can separate rhetoric from reality.

COMMENT:  The problem for us is that there are many who can't, or won't.  This kind of diplomatic approach is outrageous, and filled with danger.  It approximates the speech made by Secretary of State Dean Acheson in January of 1950, in which he left South Korea out of the American defense line.  Five months later, North Korea invaded South Korea, apparently expecting no American response.

The president is increasingly incompetent or deceitful, or both.  This UN session should sicken Americans.  But it will not sicken the "sophisticates" in the foreign-policy establishment, who'll think it's just fine.  And they have powerful allies in the media.

Sparks are coming.  We'll help provide them.

September 5, 2009