Bush at the UN

The Christian Science Monitor has a punditry roundup of reactions to President Bush's United Nations speech. No surprises: Most national and international media unimpressed, Washington Times and National Review impressed.

The Guardian, with comments on full autopilot, objects that the address "appeared essentially tailored for a domestic audience rather than foreign consumption." This may be true of the portions dealing—in the vaguest possible terms—with Iraq and Afghanistan, the recommendation to get tough on the Palestinians (who have thus far been living the life of Riley, apparently), or the joke about how human rights "are advancing across the world."

But the full text of the speech contains plenty of skylarking about a global fund for fighting TB and malaria, third world aid grants, the "Millennium Challenge Account," stronger laws against human trafficking, and a pan-African peacekeeping force. For all I know, these may all be fine ideas, but if The Guardian thinks this is stuff a domestic U.S. audience knows about, cares about, or in any other way pays attention to, then Americans aren't the only ones who don't know what's going on beyond their own borders.

My own feelings about the speech are… well, I don't know how to write "ZZZZZZ!" in a non-proportional font. Maybe it was better to hear than to read.