When you read the words "United Nations," what comes into your mind? Perhaps it's an august phrase, such as "international community," or a lofty image, such as the blue U.N. seal. In the first presidential debate, President Bush spoke of "going to the United Nations" as if it were a tiresome relative. ("I didn't need anybody to tell me to go to the United Nations. I decided to go there myself.") Sen. John Kerry often talks about the United Nations as if it were a forgotten American ally.Yet the United Nations is not a person, or an ally, or a concept. Unlike, say, Britain or Sri Lanka, it isn't even a country with a government to which people are elected. Nor is it a company whose employees are accountable to shareholders. Instead, it is a collection of political appointees whose activities are, by ordinary government or business standards, subjected to shockingly little oversight.