IS THIS SERIOUS? - AT 7:21 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will seek election to the U.N. Human Rights Council this year, the State Department said Tuesday, announcing the Obama administration's latest reversal of former President George W. Bush's foreign policies.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement that the administration will join the council to help make it more effective as part of President Barack Obama's desire to create a "new era of engagement" with the international community.

The Bush administration had boycotted the council over its repeated criticism of Israel and its refusal to cite flagrant rights abuses in Sudan and elsewhere abroad.

"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Clinton said. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system to advance the vision of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights."

COMMENT:  A depressing decision, signifying more groveling.  The council is a waste of time and space.  It won't be improved by our presence because the dictatorships and Muslim religious states that dominate it will simply ignore what we say.  All we're doing is adding credibility to a morally bankrupt instrument.  President Bush was right.  By boycotting the council, it became a marginalized laughing stock.  Of course, this decision will please the political left.

I find it amusing that Secretary Clinton now says that human rights are an essential part of our foreign policy.  She sang a different tune in China, when she downplayed human rights as an element in our relations with the Chinese.

March 31, 2009