Comments on: Even Better Than Having Bolton as Ambassador to the UN http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/even_better_than_having_bolton/ Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:11:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Brian http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/even_better_than_having_bolton/comment-page-1/#comment-654 Brian Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:06:38 +0000 http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/2007/03/05/even-better-than-having-bolton-as-ambassador-to-the-un/#comment-654 Geo11 : <blockquote><i>Our State Dept. needs a serious shakeup. Condi is not getting the job done and is being undermined by some of her staff.</i></blockquote> Agreed. But trying to reform the State Department seems to me to be particularly and uniquely difficult. How do you do it? It's not like the UN, or even teachers' unions, where you might be able to construct competing organizations. And you couldn't just sack everyone at State and start over, though I sometimes fantasize about that . . .. Every large organization overflows with individuals who have their own opinions, biases and agendas and each person will make decisions colored by his own interests. And superimposed on that will be an institutional impetus to seek power for itself and protect the prerogatives it has already won. The fact that no Secretary of State has been able to reform the State Department in any meaningful way tells me more about the nature of large organizations than the shortcomings of its bosses. About the only thing can be done is to try to force change by exposing incompetence, bias, corruption and malfeasance to the public eye, and hope that enough pressure can be brought to effect change, somehow, some way. Which is why the writings of Mr. Bolton and Ms Rosett are so vital. Brian Geo11 :

Our State Dept. needs a serious shakeup. Condi is not getting the job done and is being undermined by some of her staff.

Agreed. But trying to reform the State Department seems to me to be particularly and uniquely difficult.

How do you do it?

It’s not like the UN, or even teachers’ unions, where you might be able to construct competing organizations. And you couldn’t just sack everyone at State and start over, though I sometimes fantasize about that . . ..

Every large organization overflows with individuals who have their own opinions, biases and agendas and each person will make decisions colored by his own interests.

And superimposed on that will be an institutional impetus to seek power for itself and protect the prerogatives it has already won.

The fact that no Secretary of State has been able to reform the State Department in any meaningful way tells me more about the nature of large organizations than the shortcomings of its bosses.

About the only thing can be done is to try to force change by exposing incompetence, bias, corruption and malfeasance to the public eye, and hope that enough pressure can be brought to effect change, somehow, some way.

Which is why the writings of Mr. Bolton and Ms Rosett are so vital.

Brian

]]> By: Geo11 http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/even_better_than_having_bolton/comment-page-1/#comment-653 Geo11 Tue, 06 Mar 2007 04:26:11 +0000 http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/2007/03/05/even-better-than-having-bolton-as-ambassador-to-the-un/#comment-653 Our State Dept. needs a serious shakeup. Condi is not getting the job done and is being undermined by some of her staff. Our State Dept. needs a serious shakeup. Condi is not getting the job done and is being undermined by some of her staff.

]]> By: Alex Reed http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/even_better_than_having_bolton/comment-page-1/#comment-652 Alex Reed Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:52:42 +0000 http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/2007/03/05/even-better-than-having-bolton-as-ambassador-to-the-un/#comment-652 Ambassador Bolton's article in the WSJ gives the kind of clear-eyed exposition of the negotiations with North Korea that his many admirers have come to esteem, all the more for an unwavering devotion to the truth all too rare from any public figure in America these days. He neatly exposes the mind-bending policy contortions, to say nothing of eviscerations of past Bush Administration policy, currently being played out by the Bushies themselves - a pathetic, seemingly self-imposed, autodafé. But why? And at whose behest? Appeasement at any cost seems to be the order of the day, and Mr. Bolton gives us chapter and verse on the U.S. intra-governmental side of the equation. To complete the picture of the chute we seem to be greasing for ourselves in these negotiations with Kim, there's another great article in today's WSJ that need's to be read, and then read again, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117305264947926429.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks" rel="nofollow">Kim Jong Il's Word</a> in the Review & Outlook section of the Opinion Page. "Kim's Word" looks at the negotiations from an international perspective and places them deftly in the matrix of understanding we should be considering given the ongoing Kimian developments at the U.N. Ambassador Bolton’s article in the WSJ gives the kind of clear-eyed exposition of the negotiations with North Korea that his many admirers have come to esteem, all the more for an unwavering devotion to the truth all too rare from any public figure in America these days. He neatly exposes the mind-bending policy contortions, to say nothing of eviscerations of past Bush Administration policy, currently being played out by the Bushies themselves – a pathetic, seemingly self-imposed, autodafé. But why? And at whose behest? Appeasement at any cost seems to be the order of the day, and Mr. Bolton gives us chapter and verse on the U.S. intra-governmental side of the equation.
To complete the picture of the chute we seem to be greasing for ourselves in these negotiations with Kim, there’s another great article in today’s WSJ that need’s to be read, and then read again, Kim Jong Il’s Word in the Review & Outlook section of the Opinion Page. “Kim’s Word” looks at the negotiations from an international perspective and places them deftly in the matrix of understanding we should be considering given the ongoing Kimian developments at the U.N.

]]>