CNN is reporting that Bush plans to make a recess appointment of John Bolton as our UN Ambassador in a few minutes. The usual suspects wil squawk, of course. Mr. Bolton is supposed to be too intemperate for the job, too rude.
People I know who know Bolton, however, pooh-pooh this as partisan slander, saying Bolton is actually a nice guy. But I hope they are wrong. If there is one thing that pseudo-idealistic kleptocracy the United Nations needs right now, it is some rudeness… a solid blast of bigtime rudeness that doesn’t stop until all the Oil-for-Food swilling kleptocrats are blown out of their troughs at the Secretariat building.
It’s official now: “This post is too important to leave vacant any longer,” Bush said.
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33 Comments
1. Bostonian:I am so disgusted with the Democrats for blocking this guy. I’m beyond disgusted. It’s clear that the Democrats really prefer the UN as is.
Aug 1, 2005 - 7:17 am 2. Charlie (Colorado):Bostonian, it’s not necessarily that they like the UN like it is, it’s that they still resent the Senate the way it is.
Aug 1, 2005 - 7:26 am 3. Bostonian:True, Charlie, but here’s the thing: they care more about that than they do about reforming the world’s premier kleptocracy.
Aug 1, 2005 - 7:33 am 4. Lola:As a famous person once said (and still does from time to time), bring it on! Now we won’t be faced with a spectacle of an empty seat at the US table at that sorely-in-need-of-repair-at-the-tune-of-$1B-UN building.
Aug 1, 2005 - 7:38 am 5. jedrury:The Times’ lead:
“President Bush bypassed the Senate confirmation process today and appointed John R. Bolton as the new United States ambassador to the United Nations.”
Did the president really “bypass” it, or, did the Senate Democrats obstruct the process? As an old newspaper man told me; the lead, the lead, always pay attention to the lead. A more forthright lead:
“President Bush apppointed John R. Bolton,
the new United States ambassador to the United Nations after months of the obstruction of the Senate confirmation process by the Senate Democrats”
Aug 1, 2005 - 7:49 am 6. David Thomson:ìIt’s clear that the Democrats really prefer the UN as is.î
Thatís only the half of it. You need to go a step further. Those Democratic Partyís leaders, who truly possess the real power, have been turned into madmen. They objectively endanger the country.
I find it peculiar that few people are willing to be as blunt as myself and declare the party dead. Is there anyone who can present an argument that things can be turned around? Come on, letís hear it. Are there remaining optimists?
Aug 1, 2005 - 7:53 am 7. ShrinkWrapped:David,
The reason so many of us hold out hope that perhaps with a big enough disaster in 2006 or 2008, the Dems will come to their senses is that one-party rule is dangerous and we need a responsible opposition party. I agree with you that the left appears to be incapable of reform; perhaps we will see the Dems split and a new centrist realignment take place, but that is not on the horizon and politics is unpredictable.
Aug 1, 2005 - 8:04 am 8. TigerHawk:For some people, including perhaps most Europeans and many “internationalist” Americans, the United Nations is not so much an bureaucratic institution as an icon. These “UN romanticists” aspire to a post-sovereignty world in the model of the European Union (failing to appreciate, of course, that the European Union only works — to the extent it does — because it is so careful about which countries it admits and under what circumstances).
John Bolton is objectionable not because he yells at his subordinates or is undiplomatic, but precisely because UN romanticists worry that he will expose the UN for what it is: A bureaucracy of some value, some of the time, but with all the shortcomings of any government agency and, because of diplomatic immunity, none of the accountability. It is neither more nor less, but those who harbor the essentially religious belief in the redemptive qualities of the United Nations do not want their illusions crushed by the likes of John Bolton.
By the way, if the United Nations were the robust and legitimate organization that its supporters claim it to be, there is no way that the appointment of John Bolton would be as threatening to it as those supporters allege.
Aug 1, 2005 - 8:08 am 9. jedrury:The Democratic Party is alive but out of sync with the conservative America.
By 2008, with a new presdiential election, you may find out just how alive it is and has been for four years. I am all for opposition to the Democrats but declaring it dead is extreme.
Perimeters and/or standards of the state ot its rigor mortis would surely move the debate down the road a piece.
Aug 1, 2005 - 8:11 am 10. wxjames:And, if the democrats are right about Bolton being the wrong personality for the job, and whereas the democrats hate GW Bush, and whereas said democrats would love to embarrass Bush in time for the 2006 elections, they should have rushed Bolton into the UN seat so he could have plenty of time to illustrate Bush’s lack of taste.
Yes, let’s crush the democrat party and start a new American party. That would be perfect, two American paties running candidates against each other.
Aug 1, 2005 - 8:39 am 11. David Thomson:ìperhaps we will see the Dems split and a new centrist realignment take placeî
There is a far more likely scenario: the Republican Party splits up and provides the country with viable opposition. The real debates today are only taking placing within the GOP.
ìpolitics is unpredictable.î
There is a point when the disintegration is too far gone. The odds are not even remotely favorable.
ìBy 2008, with a new presdiential election, you may find out just how alive it is and has been for four years.î
Will political assassination be legalized? If not, there is little chance of marginalizing those who have plenty of money in their pockets. The left wing Democrats donít need to look at the national party headquarters for funding. No, these people are not going anywhere. They have the ability to throw a monkey wrench into the works anytime they so choose—and they will!
Aug 1, 2005 - 8:42 am 12. Piranha:Roger,
You didn’t mention it in your post, but the Democratic leadership is criticizing the appointment because it was made without Senate approval.
One poster at Free Republic suggested that the Senate pass a “sense of the Senate” resolution that John Bolton’s appointment is appropriate and should have been approved by the full Senate. The belief of the poster at Free Republic, which I share (but have not researched), is that non-binding Senate resolutions like this one would not be subject to filibuster.
Aug 1, 2005 - 8:54 am 13. Steven E. Ehrbar:If mr. Bolton is rude as a matter of course, I am opposed to him. But I beleive it likely that Bolton is someone who is never unintentionally rude, in the classic formulation ñ which is exactly what you want from a diplomat.
Aug 1, 2005 - 9:06 am 14. Steven Mitchell:Good for Bush and Bolton. It will make all the usual suspects scream bloody murder, which is usually a symptom of a good thing.
The Democrats are slowly dying, but not dead yet by a long shot. That is their problem. If they continue their present course, they will eventually die. That dying will be accompanied by a lot of thrashing around which will cause a lot of damage.
It would be better for the country to have two healthy parties. Whether or not the Dems are one of them is irrelevant. Therefore, the Dems should either return to sanity or die faster. I’m in favor of helping them towards the latter course, thus freeing up room for a replacement.
I’ll leave it to David to determine whether that makes me more or less pessimistic than he is.
Aug 1, 2005 - 9:22 am 15. Rick Ballard:When Ambassador Bolton attends the Kofi clatch at the UN in September hopefully he will have either the Hyde bill or the Coleman-Lugar in hand to swat the hogs away from the trough. The description provided in the aricle cited leaves me rooting for the Hyde bill. Mandatory witholding of dues is the only club heavy enough to drive the porkers out of the Secretariat.
Coleman needs to give our new Ambassador a big enough stick to use after Don Kofi’s posse continues to ignore the softly spoken words. The Senate needs to rent some backbone during this recess and put it to use upon their return. Triangulation isn’t going to cut it.
Aug 1, 2005 - 9:26 am 16. alan:Off thread King Fahd has died
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4734175.stm
Aug 1, 2005 - 9:32 am 17. Rick Ballard:Perhaps Fahd No Longer Pining for the Fjords” would be the appropriate headline.
Aug 1, 2005 - 10:15 am 18. Ed Poinsett:Good news, thank you President Bush. The democrats tied Bolton up in committee for five months. Plenty of time to Advise and Consent. However, their aim was to Obstruct and Deny. The country is better off now that we have a UN Ambassador to stick up for us this fall. I’m delighted.
Aug 1, 2005 - 11:46 am 19. La Bona:In the name of justice, I am obliged to help to disseminate story of a religious persecution … My apologies for irrelevance.
Breaking News!
Barbaric persecution of an apostate Ö
The Malaysian authorities are persecuting an ex-Muslim fondly known as Ayah Pin and flattened his religious commune dubbed as Sky Kingdom, which is a quasi-religious commune located in north east Malaysian.
Once Muslim, Forever Slave!
Ayah Pin has publicly renounced his Islamic faith in 1998 but was REJECTED by the state (NB: Apostasy is a capital crime is Malaysia punishable by DEATH!)
The Persecution
In 2001, the Malaysian authorities jailed Ayah Pin for 11 months for attempting to renounce Islam. He is viewed as a security threat and they continue to harass him with all sorts of uncivilized threats befitting the low-life including smashing up the lovely giant teapot and flattening the commune, which they just did yesterday!
Prior to the destruction yesterday, the authorities raided the commune in July, 2005 and detained 45 faithful including a Kiwi, senior citizens and among others, 3 children of Ayah Pin and his 3 wives. I read somewhere; there are kids left behind unattended in commune and while some faithful have to pawn all they have to bail themselves out, the rest are still in custody.
Their crime: Being unIslamic!
As if the arrest was not good enough, mobs made up of some 35 unidentified assailants armed with Molotov cocktails attacked the commune and set the place ablaze Ö. Assailants attack Ayah Pin’s commune with Molotov cocktails! … I supposed mobs and Molotov cocktails are Islamic.
If you have a comment, please do not hesitate to email me at divinetalk@gamil.com. Alternately, you are welcome to do so at the forum (http://divinetalk.blogspot.com/2005/07/islam-persecution-i.html)
Aug 1, 2005 - 12:01 pm 20. Terrye:I think the Democrats went after Bolton just to give Bush a hard time. petty and silly.
As for Bolton not having Senate support I say that is a lie. If it were so the Democrats would not be stopping the vote.
I think Bolton has a reputation for being a no nonsense kind of person and the UN thrives on nonsense.
I am glad Bush stopped pussyfootin around with this and got it done.
Aug 1, 2005 - 12:21 pm 21. Fresh Air:I always assumed the Democrats kind of felt like the rest of America about the U.N.: somewhere between ambivalence and condemnation. In some cases a harmless talking shop, in others a dangerous impediment to U.S. sovereignty. But no right-thinking person, I felt, actually believed the U.N. was the answer to anything.
I was wrong, evidently. Despite over 50 years of evidence to the contrary, there are apparently lots of liberal Democrats who actually believe the U.N. can solve world’s problems, and invest it with all sorts of mystical powers. Instead of thinking Turtle Bay is a louse-ridden temple of kleptocrats, they believe it is like a Kremlin of superheroes. It’s shocking, really, and IMHO another sign that there many, many on the left who are deeply delusional and in need of professional help.
As a start to reforming this mindset, I suggest we start a fund of donations to provide free subscriptions to the New Criterion and Claremont Review of Books for all liberal “intellectuals.” Even better, this fund could be financed with the money Donald Trump is going to save the U.S. taxpayers by rehabbing Turtle Bay. Bolton’s first introduced resolution should be to hire The Donald.
Aug 1, 2005 - 12:22 pm 22. jerry:David:
As long as something called the Democratic Party exists the Republicans cannot split because the only result would be to put in a left wing Democrat. That is how Clinton got elected. The Republican Party split into an internationalist and Buchanonite party led by Ross Perot. The Democratic Party must die before the Republicans can divide into the traditional anti-federalist/federalist parties that existed in the early days of the Republic.
Aug 1, 2005 - 12:30 pm 23. dtlc:I can see it coming -
“THE OBSTRUCTIONIST DEMOCRATS LOSE IN 2006 SENATE ELECTIONS”
Remember Sen. Daschle – ÔøΩMr. Obstructionist?ÔøΩ He lost big, and he was the most powerful Dem. – the Minority Leader. Keep’em in the minority – losers.
I wonder who can come up with the best TV, radio and print ads telling the voters that the Democrats are the party of
a. ÔøΩFilibuster,ÔøΩ
b. ÔøΩObstructionism,ÔøΩ
c. ÔøΩno, no, no.ÔøΩ
Does anyone have any good ideas?
Aug 1, 2005 - 12:40 pm 24. WichitaBoy:Fresh Air,
It’s shocking, really, and IMHO another sign that there many, many on the left who are deeply delusional and in need of professional help.
neo-neocon has an excellent post on this based on the writings of Milan Kundera. The gist is that in the modern world most people are completely divorced from the actual reality of their lives: they don’t know where food comes from, they don’t know how to make steel (or even what steel is), they don’t know how to defend themselves, they can’t build or repair a simple motor, etc., etc. The result is that they live mostly in a symbolic world and symbols can be (and are) easily manipulated by nefarious actors.
The UN, in particular, is nothing but a symbol for these people. A symbol of goodness, of the end of war, of children pitching in to help the downtrodden, of everyone cooperating in a vast round of Kumbaya. By opposing the UN, you are, in their minds, opposing all the good things in the world.
Don Kofi knows how to manipulate these symbols very well.
Aug 1, 2005 - 1:03 pm 25. Rick Ballard:Jerry,
David and I are available to sign the death certificate. The problem is that although we know that the Dems (like Fahd) are pining for the fjords, who is going to pull the plug?
When the Teamsters announce that they have reached an accomodation with the RNC (and they have) will that be enough?
Aug 1, 2005 - 1:25 pm 26. Silicon valley Jim:When the Teamsters announce that they have reached an accomodation with the RNC (and they have)
Is that “have reached an accommodation” or “have announced”? Can you give us a link or two to follow?
Aug 1, 2005 - 1:43 pm 27. Rick Ballard:SVJ,
No announcement. The Teamster/RNC accomodation will remain on the back burner wrt publicity for a bit. It’s regulatory in nature and easy enough to discern through observation of license plates on I-5. The Teamsters have never been the fools of labor. As Sweeney is finding out.
Aug 1, 2005 - 1:58 pm 28. Kevin P:Roger;
Predicting elections this far in advance is always a crapshoot. Trying to figure out what the Dems strategy for victory is harder. As far as I can tell they have adopted a scorched earth policy, blocking and fighting any and every Bush proposal. Whatever it is, were against it. Then they will claim that the Republicans do not know how to lead and that they have created a divisive political atmosphere and that America needs a change in leadership. This tactic banks on the American people not noticing that the Dems are creating much of the rancor.
Could this work? You never know. Sometimes voters will kick parties out just because of fatigue. And the rabid attacks on Bush makes the base very happy. The potential pitfall in this plan is the chance that the base will put a radical up for President in ‘08. If you constantly rev up the crisis a more middle of the road candidate will sound too bland to solve the end of the world problems that the democratic rhetoric has created.
Kevin Peters
Aug 1, 2005 - 2:23 pm 29. Terrye:Wichita Boy:
I used to farm. I can actually grow and can food. I have raised my own meat. I have milked cows and made my own butter and cheese. I have sown my own clothes [once upon a time]. I have heated with wood and know what it is like to live without elctricity and barely notice the difference.
Maybe that is why I don’t think in symbols, but in results.
But neoneocon is right. There are very few people who know what it is to start from scratch and make or grow a thing. They just think a few liberal incantations and voila! it appears like magic.
Aug 1, 2005 - 2:38 pm 30. Jamie Irons:Hey, WichitaBoy and Terrye!
With all due respect, who says symbols aren’t “real.”
What’s the big deal about your so-called “reality,” anyway?
I once spent 72 days living off what I could carry on my back in the northern Canadian Rockies, and when I came back to “reality,” it seemed altogether unreal.
Now I make a damned good living entirely off abstractions and symbols.
And proud of it, too.
jamie Irons
Aug 1, 2005 - 4:58 pm 31. Jamie Irons:Rick and Terrye
More seriously, I just got to your responses to my somewhat despondent post of this morning, and I appreciate your replies (I have been very busy today, just now catching up).
Terrye, I read that Weekly Standard piece on Truman, too, just last night. It was fascinating! I hope you’re right that more is going on in the background than we’re aware of.
Jamie Irons
Aug 1, 2005 - 5:04 pm 32. jerry:Rick;
Unfortunately, as long as somebody appears on the ballot with a (D) after the name and people check the box then your death certificate won’t mean much. A realistic sign of the death of the donkey will be when they stop appearing on the ballot in red states and the cannot hold blue country.
Aug 1, 2005 - 6:15 pm 33. chuck:Jerry,
A realistic sign of the death of the donkey will be when they stop appearing on the ballot in red states
Here are the 2004 election results from Utah:
George W. Bush (Republican) 655957 (72%)
John F. Kerry (Democrat) 235991 (26%)
Ralph Nader (Unaffiliated) 11041 (1%)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution) 6775 (1%)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) 3327 (0%)
Charles Jay (Personal Choice) 923 (0%)
James Harris (Socialist) 382 (0%)
I have omitted 11 write-in candidates. I posit that there are many ways for the Democratic party to die short of disappearing from the ballot.
Aug 1, 2005 - 6:38 pm