The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

The second consequence of visiting Ambassador Doubane and hearing his story was that I decided to try to meet with each of the UN ambassadors to learn theirs. Partly, this decision was strategic: for the big, challenging votes in the General Assembly, where the United States was often outnumbered, the relationships I built could turn my colleagues into unlikely allies. But even if these so-called courtesy calls did not win extra support for the United States, I believed in the importance of conveying a sentiment I often heard from Vice President Biden, quoting his own mother: “Nobody’s better than you, but you’re better than nobody.” The UN Charter says that the UN is “based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members,”