Total eclipse of the Ban Ki-moon

It seems that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has bought himself a one-way ticket to Planet Obama, a fantasy world where moral imperatives and plans of action are eclipsed by wishful thinking and delusional liberalism.

I mean really. One day the head U.N. honcho (responsibly) condemns the despicable, anti-Semitic remarks of Iran’s leaders and the next he’s choosing window or aisle for his comfy ride to Tehran? That U.S. taxpayer-funded trip is frivolous at best and will accomplish nothing other than demonstrating how the power and respectability of the United Nations has dwindled during President Obama’s time. But it aligns Ki-moon right up there with O., whose own thinly-veiled Machiavellianism in matters Middle Eastern should have set alarm bells ringing for Democrat and Republican alike, and long ago.

Speaking of Democrat and Republican, there is a Post Office in the Chelsea section of Manhattan that has not yet been refitted as that city’s umpteenth Apple Store,  and the other day I walked into its gloomy Gotham recesses. At the counter, I asked for two stamps. I expected to see jazz musicians or golden poppies or vintage music boxes in adhesive miniature. But the design I got was vintage something else:

“I didn’t know they put Ronald Reagan on a stamp,” I said.

“They sure did,” the postal clerk replied. “But who wants him?”

I want him! The same way I want Duran Duran and Rubik’s Cubes to be brand new again, but in a different way too. I don’t agree with many of Reagan’s domestic policies. He made a mess of the airline industry, for one. But on the international scene he was no pussycat.

Does anyone even remember, without going to Wikipedia, who the U.N. Secretary-General was while Reagan was in office? It almost doesn’t matter, so tall was his standing. This is largely because Reagan realized that acting was best left to Hollywood.

Posturing, play-acting, whatever you want to call it. Fuel for the haters’ propaganda. That’s all these international meetings amount to, and chances are good the U.N. and Team Obama know this too. They eclipse reality, these useless, over-commentated rendezvous.  But no eclipse lasts for long.

I want my MTV, and I want a President who actually strengthens international institutions instead of — through his own misguided agenda — undermining and discrediting them.