THANKS FOR THE USE OF THE HALL

The New York Times on Bush's UN speech:

In contrast to previous addresses here, he barely mentioned the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan except to say that the international community should do more to support those countries. Nor did he make a reference to one of his administration's biggest foreign-policy concerns: Iran's nuclear program.

What would be the point? He'd have brought up the wars (and Iran's nukes) if he actually had the slightest interest in engaging the international community on those subjects. In fact, he's never had the slightest interest. Any time he's mentioned Iraq or Afghanistan at the UN in the past was simply for domestic consumption: He was just using the setting of the UN to lend his war-lust a sense of seriousness and urgency (which was sure to be magnified by the media).

Now he knows he's going to get exactly what he wants until the end of his term (almost certainly in Iran as well as Iraq and Afghanistan); the Democrats aren't ever going to stop him. So for him there's no point in talking to the international community about the wars. It's never been about the UN -- it's always been about looking more important than his political opponents in America. Now that he doesn't have to worry about that anymore, the UN has served its purpose.