Sali Says No to the U.N.

Kevin Richert has a piece pointing to Congressman Sali’s sponsorship of a bill calling for the U.S. to get out of the U.N.  Because the bill has only four co-sponsors, it is unlikely to get a hearing. Of course, the fact is, thousands of bills in Congress are introduced and don’t get a hearing.

Richert wonders if there’s some political calculation in Sali signing on as a co-sponsor three weeks before the Republican Congressional primary. Given the attempts by the Left to paint Sali as a divisive political incompetent, it seems to be a contradiction to allege that he sponsored the bill for political gain, particularly when no official statement was even issued from Sali’s office.

Richert wonders, “Staking out common cause against the U.N. will further cement Sali’s standing with the Paul Republicans – but it will be intriguing to see how it plays with the mainstream GOP.”

I don’t know. I tend to think most mainstream Republicans don’t kneel by their beds at night and thank God that the UN is there to waste money, take bribes and kickbacks from Saddam Hussein at the expense of poor children in Iraq, and be a haven for anti-semitism and one-sided attacks on the state of Israel. The position is hardly extreme. If Idaho Republicans had voted on Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney would have probably won our state. Romney had the endorsement of the Lieutenant Governor and most of the party establishment. Romney called the U.N. a failure and called for a league of free nations, while John McCain believes the U.N. Security Council needs to be circumvented with a league of Democracies. So, Sali’s position is that we need to withdraw from an organization that’s so ineffectual, John McCain believes it has to be circumvented.  Exactly why should we be part of an organization we want to make irrelevant because of its level of corruption and undue influence by tyrants and despots?

Given that John McCain is slightly to the left of the GOP mainstream, and Sali’s position is slightly to the right of McCain’s, by definition, I don’t think Sali’s position can be termed “out of the mainstream” for Republican voters.