A bad new human-rights council was approved yesterday at the United Nations. And is it any suprise? Despite John Bolton’s leadership, yesterday’s Washington Post (I got to it late) sure made it sound like he wasn’t getting enthusiastic support from our State Department:

UNITED NATIONS, March 14 — The Bush administration indicated Tuesday that it is prepared to help fund and possibly try to join a U.N. Human Rights Council despite deep reservations about the value of the new rights body.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns assured U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and General Assembly President Jan Eliasson by telephone that the United States will formally oppose the creation of the council in a General Assembly session Wednesday but supports its overall mission, U.S. and U.N. officials said.
Rice and Burns also told Annan and Eliasson that the United States will not stand in the way of an anticipated decision by a key United Nations budget committee Wednesday to authorize $4.5 million in initial funding for the agency. The United States would be required to cover 22 percent of the council’s costs.
“We have very high standards for human rights at the United Nations, and won’t be able to support the proposal because the new institution falls short of those standards,” Burns said in a telephone interview. “But we also want to see the U.N. succeed, and so we hope the human rights council can be strengthened over time so that they can deal effectively with real world problems, such as Darfur and Burma. So we’ll look for ways to support with the aim of strengthening it.”

Don’t get me wrong. Those don’t-worry-we’ll fund it whispers weren’t the only thing working against us at that awful body, but it’s great that John Bolton seems to have such a tremendous support system in Foggy Bottom.