Bolton is a reformer? News to anyone
The latest Republican talking points regarding the nomination of John Bolton to the UN Ambassadorship are mind-boggling, to say the least. The first is that the UN is "plagued" by "extraordinary corruption", as George Allen just put it on CSPAN2 (10:58AM), and needs a strong reformer ambassador (as if that were a somehow logical combination of traits). Allen and others of his ilk are claiming that the American public is clamoring for reform of the UN, seeing the only body this world has for intercountry cooperation as a waste of money. I don't know about you, but I don't see that; where are the large-scale protest movements that usually characterize public unrest? Nowhere. Are there masses of letters to the editors screaming that the US should pull out of the UN due to its corruption or uselessness? No, except from right-wing isolationist-imperialists (meaning that the US should rule the world through unilateral military actions, an inherently unstable concept).
By all accounts, and even by admission from all the Republican speakers I've heard today (Allen, McCain, and Kyl), Bolton is an irascible, volatile, and singularly blunt individual--hardly the character traits one desires in a "diplomat", and certainly not the personality type that will succeed in that kind of post. This is, of course, what the Republicans want at the UN, and what all 3 of the speakers I heard actually noted as the main qualifications for Bolton's confirmation.
Undergirding their support for a wildly aggressive Ambassador to the UN (in itself an incredible failure to recognize what this job requires) is the nakedly stated second talking point: Bolton should be confirmed because the President named him. In essence, what Bolton's supporters are advocating is the complete subjugation of the Senate's role in the confirmation process to the whims of Smirky the Chimp, regardless of any nominee's qualifications, or even more saliently in Bolton's case, suitability for the position in question. There is so much evidence in hand that shows Bolton's sheer incompetence in the very attitudes and skills this post demands, even given all the suppression of documents and footdragging by the Administration in answering the Senate's rightful requests for more documents, that it is shameful that anyone, let alone someone elevated to such an important office as Senator, thinks Bolton would be anything but a disgrace to this nation as the Ambassador to the UN. He deserves this because Smirky the Chimp says he does? That's sad, and it is also unconstitutional. Republicans in favor of Bolton should be ashamed.
By all accounts, and even by admission from all the Republican speakers I've heard today (Allen, McCain, and Kyl), Bolton is an irascible, volatile, and singularly blunt individual--hardly the character traits one desires in a "diplomat", and certainly not the personality type that will succeed in that kind of post. This is, of course, what the Republicans want at the UN, and what all 3 of the speakers I heard actually noted as the main qualifications for Bolton's confirmation.
Undergirding their support for a wildly aggressive Ambassador to the UN (in itself an incredible failure to recognize what this job requires) is the nakedly stated second talking point: Bolton should be confirmed because the President named him. In essence, what Bolton's supporters are advocating is the complete subjugation of the Senate's role in the confirmation process to the whims of Smirky the Chimp, regardless of any nominee's qualifications, or even more saliently in Bolton's case, suitability for the position in question. There is so much evidence in hand that shows Bolton's sheer incompetence in the very attitudes and skills this post demands, even given all the suppression of documents and footdragging by the Administration in answering the Senate's rightful requests for more documents, that it is shameful that anyone, let alone someone elevated to such an important office as Senator, thinks Bolton would be anything but a disgrace to this nation as the Ambassador to the UN. He deserves this because Smirky the Chimp says he does? That's sad, and it is also unconstitutional. Republicans in favor of Bolton should be ashamed.
posted by bryduck at 10:56 AM
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