Santorum: GOP Right to Block Disability Treaty

When the GOP blocked the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities last night, Rick Santorum sent out a tweet proclaiming, "We did it." Santorum was one of the foremost voices calling for Republicans to reject the treaty, and in the Daily Beast today he explains why, suggesting that, under the treaty, disabled children would have their fates decided by "a well-meaning but faceless and distant United Nations bureaucrat" rather than their parents. The US, he argued, "should be telling the UN, not the other way around, how to ensure dignity and respect for the disabled."

Of course, proponents would say that's exactly what this was. The treaty was based on the Americans with Disabilities Act. The US "could have shown its leadership by ratifying the treaty," writes Michael Yudell of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead we got "nonsense" about the UN taking our sovereignty. "I’m curious whether these same Senators and other treaty opponents thought The X-Files was a documentary film." At the New York Times, Lawrence Downes calls it "a parting slap at Bob Dole," who arrived in a wheel chair and was greeted warmly by each Republican—before most voted against the treaty. (More Rick Santorum stories.)