***update: Eric Shawn has a theory about the U.N.’s attack on the U.S. and Fox News…audio at Johnny Dollar’s***

The United Nations is complaining that Americans are undermining it with criticism–you know, because the actions of its own corrupt, incompetent officials have nothing to do with its squandered credibility. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News (which continues to pound the U.N. on the Oil-for-Food scandal more than any other broadcast media outlet) are singled out:

Secretary General Kofi Annan’s deputy assailed the United States on Tuesday for withholding support from the United Nations, encouraging its harshest detractors and undermining an institution that he said Washington needed more than it would admit.

“The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable,” said the deputy, Mark Malloch Brown. “You will lose the U.N. one way or another.”

In a highly unusual instance of a United Nations official singling out an individual country for criticism, Mr. Malloch Brown said that although the United States was constructively engaged with the United Nations in many areas, the American public was shielded from knowledge of that by Washington’s tolerance of what he called “too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping.”

“Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News,” he said.

Kofi Annan prefers Elmo.

***
Previous:

U.N. anti-human rights council
The U.N. money pit
The U.N. sex scandal: it’s not just the Congo
The U.N.’s Congo crimes
“Bringing the U.N. kicking and screaming into the 21st century”
U.N. sex scandal: heads are starting to roll
Read the U.N.’s lips: No new sex scandal
The U.N.’s rape of the innocents
Who is Didier Bourget?
Keep the U.N. off the Internet
Get the U.N. out of the US
Kofi A. Annan will you please go now? Part II
Kofi A. Annan, will you please go now?
We’re from the U.N. and we’re here to help
Terrorists on the U.N. payroll–or is it the other way around?
The U.N. vs. women
How the U.N. spends its money
The U.N. hires help from John Kerry

Fox News coverage of the U.N.: Start here. More here.
FNC reporter Eric Shawn’s book: The U.N. exposed

Oil for Food Volcker panel/report
Roger L. Simon: Special Report – Oil for Food investigation Pt I
The U.N. foundation vs. Roger L. Simon