Jon Stewart Takes Down Treaty Rejectionists: “Please Tell Me This Is Rock Bottom”

In case you missed it, Jon Stewart at his best on the Senate’s rejection on Tuesday of the Disabilities Convention:

The floor debate on the CRPD can be found in the Congressional Record here, starting at page S7365. Not very edifying reading on either side. Here’s a sample from Senator Inhofe:

It seems as though most of the time when the U.N. conventions or treaties come up that I have been opposed to them, and my concern always has been that of sovereignty. I do oppose the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities because I think it does infringe upon our sovereignty, establishing an unelected United Nations bureaucratic body called the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a Conference of State Parties. These unelected bureaucratic bodies would implement the treaty and pass so-called recommendations that would be forced upon the United Nations and the United States if the United States is a signatory. . . .

We don’t need the United Nations bureaucrats changing it in our country in the name of worldwide advocation. . . . I know a lot of people feel that no idea is a good idea unless it comes from an international organization. I kind of fall at the other end of the spectrum.

Yes, kind of at the other end of the spectrum. For their part, proponents bent over backwards to stress the lack of any effect of the convention on U.S. law, as if to concede, any human rights treaty that did actually require changes to U.S. law would be a non-starter.