This Is the U.N.? Leaders' Speeches Definitely Not the Usual Diplomacy

Sept. 25, 2009 — -- From the four corners of the globe came the world's leaders this week to New York City. In the august chamber of the United Nations, some brought visions of a world free of nuclear weapons, others brought new ideas to curb global warming and bolster the economy, and some ... sang a song or made demands about the JFK assassination.

From the podium of the General Assembly to their antics outside, the usual suspects did their thing, proving once again that even coercive governments can be legitimately funny.

"Please, don't anybody throw a shoe at me," cracked Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Thursday, a joke at the expense of his former nemesis, U.S. President George W. Bush, who had two shoes chucked at him by an Iraqi journalist during a press conference in 2008.

This is the U.N., after all: There were no penalty flags thrown for unstatesmanlike conduct -- though many international leaders walked out on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust-denying speech Wednesday.

But by and large, the leaders were allowed to go on ... and on and on.

Allotted to speak for 15 minutes, Chavez took 57 minutes, the first part of which was dedicated to a positive and sometimes hard-to-follow review of director Oliver Stone's new documentary "South of the Border," a movie all about Chavez.

After inviting President Obama to "come over to the socialist side; come join the Axis of Evil over here" -- the delivery of which was described by the Associated Press as "only half joking" -- the Venezuelan leader closed his address with a song.

Following the speech, Chavez was spotted strolling around the East Side of Manhattan without bodyguards, a stark contrast to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who travels everywhere, including New York, with an all-female force of bodyguards.

Every year, one leader -- by the sheer power of his own outrageousness -- seems to rise above the din of politicians parroting the same platitudes one after another at the U.N.

By almost all accounts, Gadhafi took the crown this year.

Though Gadhafi has ruled Libya for 40 years, many of those were spent as an international pariah and accused sponsor of terrorism. This was Gadhafi's first visit to the U.S. and first address to the United Nations.

Perhaps he had four decades of grievances to get off his chest.