U.N. rights panel is all wrong

McClatchey Newspapers: John Bolton, the straight-talking envoy who most of the new congressional leadership says is unfit for his job because he talks too straight, called it from the start: The U.N. Human Rights Council, formed five months ago from the ashes of the old Human Rights Commission, was going to be even more useless than its predecessor.
Tuesday in Geneva, U.N. ditherer-in-chief Kofi Annan agreed, fretting that the council does nothing but screech about what genocidal war criminals Israelis are. "They have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue," said Annan, in a bit of an understatement, "and, of course, if you focus on the Palestinian-Israeli issue without even discussing Darfur and other issues, some wonder, what is this council doing?"
Some do, yes. What this council has done so far is ignore "other issues" before it -- beyond Darfur, these would include Burma, North Korea, Uzbekistan and so on -- while handing down endless condemnations of the Israel Defense Forces. Another one has just popped up: "Indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in Gaza and Lebanon, "deliberate and lethal attacks by the IDF on civilians," etc.
What about Hamas, Hezbollah?
Meanwhile, these watchdogs find no reason to complain about Hezbollah and Hamas and the ever-continuing rocket launches across the Israeli border. "The violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories are intolerable," sniffed U.N. high commissioner for human rights Louise Arbour the other day, visiting Gaza even as Israel-bound rockets were getting fired off all around her.
Whew. Too much even for a thumb-twiddler like Kofi. Bolton has clearly seen what a squirrel cage this U.N. place is. Annan is getting a glimmer of this himself these last days on the job. Perhaps the Senate might find itself similarly illumed when it takes up confirming Bolton, which, distressingly, it almost surely won't do.