Now this is really interesting:

The United States strongly criticized the No. 2 United Nations official on Wednesday for a speech he gave that accused the U.S. government of leaving Americans in the dark about the world body’s good works.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called Tuesday’s speech by Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown a “very, very grave mistake” that could undermine Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s efforts to push through an ambitious reform agenda at the world organization.

He demanded that Annan repudiate the rare public criticism by a U.N. official, and even suggested that the fate of the organization itself might be at stake.

Kofi is standing by his man and the speech he made, which is really the interesting part:

“You have to engage to help make this institution a better institution,” Malloch Brown told reporters. “And you need to engage, if I dare say so, with your own public opinion to explain better why the U.N. matters to American interests.”

In the speech, Malloch Brown said the United States relies on the United Nations as a diplomatic tool but doesn’t defend it against criticism at home. That policy of “stealth diplomacy” is unsustainable, he said.

While praising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessors, Malloch Brown lamented that the good works of the U.N. are ignored. “Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.”

“The U.N.’s role is in effect a secret in Middle America even as it is highlighted in the Middle East and other parts of the world,” Malloch Brown said.

DAMN the truth does hurt. I say that because what Brown said was exactly that – the truth. Right wingers like Limbaugh and FOX constantly badger the U.N. and lobby for it’s demise. Of course when the U.N. speaks out against FOX, the White House’s news station, of course their puppet Bolton is going to get pissed.