Recently, eleven Democratic Members of Congress sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan requesting the world body dispatch election monitors to oversee this fall’s U.S. Presidential voting.

Yes. That’s right. These eleven Democrats want the United Nations, that bastion of honesty, fair play and good sense, to supervise the Presidential election in the world’s leading democracy.

No. That’s not quite right, is it?

In reality, the Members of Congress in question extended their invitation to one of the most corrupt, scandal-ridden, anti-democratic organizations ever conceived. Do they honestly believe that inviting election monitors from nations who cribbed their constitutions from ours to peer over our shoulders on Election Day is a good idea?

Frankly, with this bunch, it’s hard to tell.

Just think of the visual: a couple of khaki-clad U.N. monitors hanging out around a fire station in Boca Raton, replete with white hats, blue arm bands and a snazzy white Land Rover, encouraging Americans who liberated their nations in World War II to "Remember to only vote for one." Our good friends in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere would just love that footage.

Subsequent events have shed more light on the requesters’ motives.

The letter from the eleven Democrats was followed, needless to say, by a press conference full of angst and indignant whining over voting procedures in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election.

The press conference spawned articles in newspapers across the country and renewed hand-wringing from editorial boards about protecting the right of Americans to vote. Most people scratched their heads and wondered what these dolts were thinking.

In response, Congressman Steven Buyer (R-IN), moved to give these eleven the legislative come-uppance they deserved. He proposed an amendment to the foreign operations bill designed to squash their request to the U.N.

The House debated Mr. Buyer’s amendment on July 15, and things were proceeding smoothly, until Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida took to the floor. Brown was a leader of the cabal that wants U.N. election monitors at every polling place was none too happy with Mr. Buyer’s amendment.

Standing in the well of the House, Ms. Brown launched into a screaming tirade which included the following gem:

"I come from Florida, where you [pointing accusingly at Mr. Buyer] and others participated in what I call the United States coup d’etat. We need to make sure that it does not happen again. Over and over again after the election, when you stole the election [still pointing at Mr. Buyer], you came back and said get over it. No, we are not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

Though it may seem hard to believe, there are actually rules of decorum in the U.S. House of Representatives, and accusing another member of a crime (in this case, election fraud) is a clear breach of those rules.

Mr. Buyer, his integrity impugned, demanded that Ms. Brown’s words be "taken down," a parliamentary reprimand that removes them from the record and marks the offender’s imprudent behavior.

Moments later, the House agreed, and Ms. Brown’s words were taken down. In granting Mr. Buyer’s request, the Member presiding over the House helpfully instructed, "Members should not accuse other Members of committing a crime, such as ‘stealing’ an election."

A short time afterward, Mr. Buyer’s amendment passed on a vote of 243 to 161.

Ms. Brown’s behavior and the succeeding vote raise some questions. First, are these people really so ashamed to be Americans that they would hand the care and maintenance of our democracy over to a hopelessly corrupt world organization?

Is this radical request worth the self-inflicted damage to their reputations and the reputation of the U.S. House of Representatives that resulted from Ms. Brown’s fanatical behavior?

And finally, who are the 150 others who joined the original eleven in voting against Mr. Buyer’s amendment and, by extension, for U.N. oversight of the upcoming Presidential election?

Their constituents ought to be asking whether these extremists, who seem ready to hand over our sovereignty to the U.N., really ought to be acting as Representatives of these United States.