Why is this not a bigger story? Particularly in light of all the calls among many for the UN to do something about the current situation in the Middle East?

The Tongsun Park case has gotten remarkably little press, but it is both an important and a cautionary tale. It illustrates how easily the U.N., behind its veils of secrecy and diplomatic immunity, can be exploited by the most unscrupulous tyrants on the planet. And Mr. Park's conviction is a warning to beware any "back channels" now running between the U.N. executive suite and such rogue states as North Korea and Iran.

What?! And make the UN look bad on purpose? Surely you jest.

There are some simple reasons that even the White House isn't giving the oil-for-food scandal more publicity. Whatever merit there was in an honest examination of the program, the topic is also fodder for a variety of turncoats (like Ahmed Chalabi) and radicals (like Claudia Rosett and Rush Limbaugh) who aren't interested in the truth. They have their own ends that are not particularly cleaner than the oil-for-food program was. In particular, the invasion of Iraq has generated just as much corruption and scandal as the oil-for-food program.

Then there is the fact that Tongsun Park, along with some Americans, illegally lobbied Washington. If he had illegally lobbied Paris or Bonn, then the ideological line would have been that it made France and Germany look bad. But since it happened here, only the UN is at fault, not America. This blatant double standard is easy for the Red News Channel or the Opinion Journal. But it's too much for the White House, which has belatedly found new respect for international diplomacy.

The subtext how the United States treats the UN. Of course the ideological line is that the UN is the sum of all bad things and should be abolished. But that is not what Bush and Bolton more quietly have in mind. They realize that the UN is still a convincing diplomatic forum, apart from whether its programs and missions are good or bad. So what they really think is that the UN is an unruly federal agency. They want to be able to hire and fire at the UN, just like they can hire and fire at FEMA. They believe in uniting nations, but only if America unites them.

That is why Bush himself was among those who called for UN intervention in the Middle East. He said that he wanted to tell Kofi Annan to tell Bashir Assad to tell Hezbollah to knock it off. Life would be sweet if the President of the United States had such a chain of command.

"Life would be sweet if the President of the United States had such a chain of command."

Yesh....Sweet for Mahmood Nutcase over in Iran perhaps.