It's Turkey Time

In baseball, three strikes equal one batter out. In bowling, three strikes in a row equal one turkey. By sending Porter Goss and Condi Rice to clean up the CIA and State Department respectively, this week President Bush unleashed retaliatory strikes against two of the most reform-averse institutions obstructing our war on terror. If he goes after one more, and I have the perfect target in mind, Bush could bag a turkey that will make all the left-wing nuts cry fowl.

Here’s a clue: $3 billion.

According to a State Department report, “The United States is the largest financial contributor to the UN and has been every year since its creation in 1945. We provided more than $3 billion in contributions, both cash and in-kind, to the UN system in 2002. (In-kind contributions include items such as food donations for the World Food Program). The United States funded 22 percent of the UN regular budget, as well as more than 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. Additionally, the United States provides a significant amount in voluntary contributions to the UN and UN-affiliated organizations and activities, mostly for humanitarian and development programs.”

That ain't chicken scratch. As the U.N.'s most generous benefactor, we are the golden goose that laid a rotten egg. We have been betrayed by our so-called allies there who feast on coq au vin and chicken Kiev, and all we got is this stupid bill.

The House International Relations Committee, chaired by my favorite old coot Henry Hyde, may have uncovered a connection between the U.N. oil-for-food program that feathered Saddam Hussein’s nest and the deposed despot’s multimillion dollar fund used to pay families of Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel. Regrettably, that other wise owl from Illinois, Phil Crane, will be flying the coop at the end of this term.

Daring to engage Secretary General Kofi Annan in a high-stakes game of chicken with his Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Norm Coleman crowed to columnist Robert Novak, “In seeing what is happening at the U.N, I am more troubled today than ever. I see a sinkhole of corruption.” Coleman is the junior senator from Minnesota, the literary launch pad for the Northern Alliance, featuring Chad the Elder of Fraters Libertas who has generously linked to this blog and whose other nom de plume is Peeps. Their senior senator, Mark Dayton, has been certified as a cuckoo by Robert "Sheets" Byrd, the Senate's foremost authority on loony behavior. My state, California, is represented by two chicks, one of whom is a dovish dodo.

Don't expect the MSM to spend much time reporting these developments. The peacock network, NBC, is too busy rewinding their video and taking cheap shots at the Marines. Thus far Annan is getting a free ride from the press while ducking requests for cooperation from both committees and his hand-picked investigator, Paul Volcker, is parroting his line of resistance. Instead Annan went off half-cocked, sniping at Bush about Fallujah like an ostrich with his head buried in quicksand. Two can play that game.

Bush is in the catbird seat to grab Annan by the McNuggets and make him sing like a soprano canary or, better yet, a Soprano canary. The U.N. is long overdue for its day of reckoning and that will truly be a day for thanksgiving. As the Vice President might say, "Go flock yourself."