The Third World at home

The UK's Independent newspaper has an article today that will do little to bolster the image of the US abroad as the great model of a modern democracy. A recent UN report shows that parts of the US are as poor as many Third World countries (an argument one would be hard-pressed to contradict given the recent images of New Orleans). The report is critical of the US and its economic policies both abroad and at home. The most recent problem abroad involves the Bush's hand-picked UN ambassador, John Bolton, who last month...

...submitted 750 amendments to the draft declaration for next week's summit to strengthen the UN and review progress towards its Millennium Development Goals to halve world poverty by 2015.

This tactic essentially sank the proposals, un-doing months of hard work by the State Department. Read more about it here.