On the homepage today, I have an Impromptus column (here). But I’d like to make a quick Corner comment on something I just learned about — an issue I would have included in Impromptus if I had known about it in time. The U.S., under our new president, has decided to join, or to seek to join, the U.N. Human Rights Council.

I wrote a lot about this council, in its couple of guises, during the Bush years. (The GWB years.) And it was pretty clear that the council was irredeemable: certainly for the time being. The worst actors sat on it: China, Sudan, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia. The council is supposed to sit in judgment of human-rights violators; but, in a piece of pure poetry, the worst violators compose the council. They spend their time condemning Israel, apparently the lone offender in all the world.

So President Bush, John Bolton, et al. said: We will have nothing to do with it. The United States will not legitimize this council by being a part of it. This was a morally cleansing act.

And it was similar to something Reagan did in 1984: He withdrew the United States from UNESCO. This was a breathtaking move, a thrilling move: one of the little things that added up to Reagan’s overall victory. UNESCO had sunk deep into anti-Americanism, corruption, hatred of the West, and general moral lunacy. And Reagan said: We will have no part of it; you can go on without us.

UNESCO was a pet of the Left, and the Left howled in outrage when Reagan made his move. But the move had a salutary effect on UNESCO. Over time, it shaped up, and George W. Bush found it fit to rejoin, 20 years later. You see, Bush wasn’t against international institutions, and neither was Reagan. They were just against institutions that do more harm than good. And they knew the value of symbols.

Obama’s moves on the world stage are incredibly depressing, demoralizing — at least I find them so. Think of his early interview with al-Arabiya, which reassured despots, while telling liberals, democrats, and dissenters: “See ya.” Think of his Nowruz greeting to “the people and leaders of Iran.” And now we have the make-nice with the U.N. Human Rights Council, one of the nastiest bodies on earth.

There is of course a time to “work within.” And there is a time to shun and shame. Reagan and Bush had a good sense of timing. And that is something the United States will have to do without, it seems.