But the man who orchestrated this putsch by the New World Order, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Switzerland), did not appear concerned by the imagery. He called the secretary general “Your Excellency.” Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana (a Republican, but he drives a Prius) was equally deferential as he spoke of “the privilege of this distinguished visitor.”

And Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) hailed Ban for “the accelerated leadership role” that the United Nations has taken. “Your vision, that in Copenhagen there can be a politically binding agreement that will lead to a legally binding agreement to follow . . . is a very reasonable, sensible and hopeful course.”

Somewhere in Manhattan, Sean Hannity was tearing up his script for the night’s broadcast.

Kerry invited Ban to lecture the Foreign Relations Committee, but it’s not clear what the chairman hoped to gain from the photos of him standing with Ban in the Capitol’s Brumidi Corridors. Indeed, it seemed quite possible that a U.N. endorsement of Kerry’s climate efforts would embolden its foes, who like the world body even less than they like cap-and-trade. In the pantheon of conspiracy theories, the United Nations is right up there with the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Federal Reserve and the Council on Foreign Relations — which, as it happens, Kerry addressed a couple of weeks ago.

Even Americans who don’t come from the grassy-knoll tradition tend not to regard the United Nations with great confidence. A Gallup poll earlier this year found that 65 percent of respondents thought it was doing a bad job, compared with 26 percent who think it is doing a good job. Ban himself is not terribly nefarious, if only because he is unknown. A Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of those surveyed didn’t know who he was. The others may have confused him with the Unification Church’s Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Ban’s profile could become much higher, and not in a good way, if Americans start to perceive him as meddling in Senate consideration of climate legislation. Even before he stormed the Capitol, Fox News was drawing a connection between global warming talks in Copenhagen next month and One World Government.

“America, if you believe this country is great but you’re not really into that whole One World Government thing, watch out,” Fox News Channel’s Beck warned a couple of weeks ago. His guest, Lord Christopher Monckton of Britain, told Beck that “at Copenhagen, a treaty will be signed that will, for the first time, create a world government with powers to intervene directly in the economy and in the environmental affairs of individual nations.” Earlier on Fox News, Dick Morris informed Hannity that President Obama “believes in One World Government.” And author Jerome Corsi went on Hannity’s show to warn about a One World Government in which “our sovereignty would be subject to the dictates” of the United Nations and other international organizations.

The One World Government was on open display at the Capitol on Tuesday, as international U.N. staffers waited outside the room where Ban spoke to the senators. The secretary general had come with his own world government (armed?) security detail, who stood alongside the Capitol police.

Ban, wearing a gold U.N. lapel pin, unfolded his speech. “Less than a month from now, the leaders of the world will gather in Copenhagen,” he said. “They must conclude a robust global agreement,” that is “comprehensive, binding, equitable and fair.”

Speaking softly but firmly, the South Korean cautioned the Americans that “the world is not standing still,” and that “all the eyes of the world are looking to the United States.”

After a few minutes, Kerry cut off questioning. “Folks, the secretary general has to get to the airport.”

Ban needed to catch the U.S. Airways shuttle to New York. The One World Government Air Force isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

The Washington Post