Setting A [Belated] Example For The World

Obama announced today that the U.S. will finally sign the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The announcement comes on the 19th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Senate must now ratify the treaty and I can’t imagine it will be a controversial vote. But Republicans being Republicans, I’m sure they’ll take the opportunity to wax paranoid about how ratifying this treaty will put blind pilots at the controls of the U.N.’s black helicopters or that we’ll have to make the space station wheelchair-accessible.

Obama also made this statement on disability rights:

I am not satisfied I am proud of the progress we have made but I am not satisfied — and I know you are not either — until every American with a disability can learn in their local public school in the manner that’s best for them. Until they can apply for a job without discrimination and live and work independently in their communities, if that is what they choose, we have got more work to do.  As long as we as a people still too easily succumb to casual discrimination or fear of the unfamiliar, we’ve still got more work to do.

Now might be a good time to mention that I’m still waiting for that phone call from the Obama administration.