Addressing a council whose advice you've previously ignored is not necessarily a guaranteed method to smooth out worldly relations during an election year.

President Bush spoke before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday about the importance of the world's role in defending the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and secure its freedom.

Citing recent events such as this month's school killings in Beslan, Russia, Bush told the assembly that it had a responsibility to "Fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity, to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom." During his speech, he said that there was no justification for terrorist attacks, foreign or domestic.

While U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan also has said that the killings of innocent civilians is a shameless disregard for the law, he rightly expressed the necessity to uphold the rule of law for all nations, no matter their influence or power.

Instead of suggesting warfare against those who engage in terrorist acts, Annan suggested the strengthening of existing disarming treaties that would prevent the potential use of weapons of mass destruction. Annan has called U.S. action in Iraq borderline illegal, and his words are to be taken as a thinly veiled reminder that the world will not idly accept unjustified war.

Although Annan's suggestions are certainly logical, Bush's address to the assembly begged to question the point of addressing a council on the progress of a war that was asked not to be waged.

We find Bush's address to be a plea for acceptance among the very council that disapproved of his decision to go to war in the first place. Handlers will say the speech was made during a break from campaigning for re-election, but we'll suggest there was no break in campaigning whatsoever.