Is the UN a club for white wine-swilling, cheese-eating surrender monkeys to come together and scheme about claiming American property or perpetrating sex crimes under the guise of peacekeeping missions? Or is it a shining beacon of international peace and cooperation, joining the nations of the world in enlightened common interest and effective multilateral action?

Neither, of course. But as with most UN controversies, the reaction to Malloch Brown’s speech has prompted most partisans into their respective camps – UN as pariah, or UN as panacea.

Two points on the speech:

At least implicitly, Brown was – as Brian Voight points - calling out the U.S. for engaging the UN to advance its own agenda. But what is unique – or wrong – about that? The UN is, after all, made up of member states. It is not unreasonable for those member states – including the U.S. – to act in their own interests.

But Brown is absolutely correct that “much of the public discourse (on the UN) that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.” And that’s not good for U.S. interests. Because those on the right have to realize that there’d be a lot more ways to deal with messes in the world – and a lot less burden on the U.S. – if the UN could more efficiently deploy resources and expertise (wouldn’t it be nice to have all those international civil servants helping with capacity-building in Iraqi ministries?). And liberal internationalists have to get past the fear of being attacked as global test

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advocates, and make their pro-UN arguments to the whole of the country on the basis of pragmatism and not merely an idealistic vision that can be undercut by the next UN scandal, real or imagined.

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