WaPo’s take on Ban Ki-Moon, now the leading candidate to replace the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan:

Rivals have privately grumbled that South Korea, which has the world’s 11th-largest economy, has wielded its economic might to generate support for his candidacy. [Snip]

Ban said the insinuations are “groundless”… “I am a man of integrity.”

I don’t know, that statement has that “I did not have sex with that woman…” quality to it. I guess it all depends on what “man” or “integrity” means.

Then there is Ban’s enthusiastic support for global taxation:

Last week, Ban attended a conference hosted by French President Jacques Chirac to build support for an initiative to use airline taxes to fund programs to combat AIDS and other infectious diseases.

Speaking in French, Ban said South Korea would be the first Asian country to back the initiative.

France has been pushing this global taxation scheme for a while (see my earlier op-ed on the topic). Global taxation means, of course, global governance, whch is, in turn, a euphemism for one-world government.

The WaPo piece does quote Amb. Bolton with some kind words about Ban:

“We’ve always had the highest professional regard for him,” said John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the world body.

I certainly hope the good ambassador was being diplomatic.