Confirm Bolton
Because Asia isn’t adding nuclear nations fast enough. Let’s get Japan to go nuclear!
In the interim, Bolton has proved he doesn’t have horns. In fact, he has answered any questions about whether he has the right temperament and diplomatic skills for the job. He has worked to build consensus on the world’s response to North Korea’s nuclear test, Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East conflict and genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The Trib should read one of its own properties for why this is one of the most assanine statements ever published by the Tribune including the usual crap by Byrne and Kass.
His record since taking over as ambassador in August 2005 has shown that his adversarial stance toward the institution has not softened. In his first month as U.N. envoy, he gleefully undermined the most comprehensive reform movement in U.N. history by insisting on the adoption of hundreds of irrelevant amendments that were never going to be accepted by the General Assembly.
Later, when the U.N. did agree on one important change — creating a new, reformed Human Rights Council — he argued furiously against it, rallied just three other nations to the cause (out of 191) and eventually saw the U.S. go down to a humiliating defeat. Then he turned around and said he would work with the council and help it financially but not join it. Which left Washington looking not just like a loser, but a whiny one at that. As Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) remarked, Bolton was not just a bully, but an “ineffective” one.
In furtherance of his mission, Bolton also has promoted various pet causes at the institution. For example, when issues of population control or limiting the use of small arms come up, he brings into his office antiabortion activists and National Rifle Assn. members, respectively, to take the other side.
He has, on occasion, reportedly sneaked around his own nominal boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to get support for his own hard-line views at the U.N. — for example, his refusal last summer to endorse the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing poverty in the developing world. Rice eventually forced him to reverse that stance.
To the extent that he has been able to operate at all at the United Nations — most recently in the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire — he has had to bow to a new realism within the Bush administration, and yes, sometimes, to international pressure. Even then, though, according to published news reports, he doesn’t get along well with our allies. His bristling nature has left many bruised feelings among his colleagues. His accomplishments are marginal at best. He may be among the most ineffective envoys the United States has ever sent to the U.N.
The man is not only shrill, but stupid. He had the US almost completely shut out of the the peace deal for the Israel-Lebanaon war. He has specifically undermined Rice in attempts to engage Iran–something now being pushed by the Baker Commission.
Confirming John Bolton would only enable the Cheney faction to make more of a hash out of US Foreign Policy than it already has and leaving him at the UN will only mean that any attempt to find a regional solution to Iraq will have to fight a two front war against him and those factions in the Middle East who don’t want any sort of peace. The Trib’s editorial is one of the single most irresponsible and unfathomable editorials ever produced by the Tribune. It is an endorsement of endangering the few alliances we have left, a nuclear arms race in Asia, and continued quagmire in Iraq.
And the Democrats are supposed to go along with the Administration to show responsible bipartisanship.
I’m sorry, but this election was an intervention. Irresponsible bipartisanship–something I took part in at the beginning needs to end. Enabling this Administration to continue a failed foreign policy because it’s good to get along failed miserably already. Denying that failure and asking for more of the same only demonstrates how out of touch with reality are those who continue to view this administration as somehow competent to fix the disasters they have created.
ArchPundit