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| Home Front: Politix |
| Bolton: right tonic for an ailing U.N. |
| 2005-04-28 |
| h/t Lucianne Bush nominee is being smeared April 28, 2005 It's been just over three months since George W. Bush began his second term as president. Yet criticism of his foreign policy is no less feverish than it was this early in his first term. This time however the animus is directed against him via his nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The smear campaign against Bolton has gone on far too long. If the Foreign Relations Committee can't bring itself to endorse him soon, the White House ought to make good on its threat to force a showdown vote on the Senate floor. The only drawback is the cover it would provide those committee members who've sheepishly allowed the president's nominee to be abused in such a shameful manner. Every day seems to bring a new charge against Bolton, yet each loses credibility as soon it is put in its proper context or simply refuted. For example, the head of the consulting firm that hired Bolton as legal counsel for an aid project in Kyrgyzstan in 1994 has disputed an accusation from anti-Bush partisan Melody Townsel that he shouted at her and pounded on her hotel room door. He not only cast doubt on Townsel's account, but also accused her of a poor performance while she worked on the project. Frederick Vreeland, a former intelligence officer and ambassador to Morocco, complained bitterly Monday about Bolton's "temperament" when Bolton served as assistant secretary of state for international organizations (which included the U.N.) in 1991. Of course, that was the period during which Bolton broke with the State Department bureaucracy to doggedly campaign for repeal of the U.N.'s infamous Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. Bolton has also been accused of bullying intelligence analysts to change their judgments. But the Senate long ago investigated these allegations. In fact, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report last year exonerating him and other officials of trying to manipulate intelligence for political purposes. It should be clear by now that the Bolton brouhaha is less about the proper temperament needed to conduct diplomacy than it is a dispute over policy. If being tough, blunt and occasionally arrogant is disqualifying for public service, a great many lawmakers would be out of work. Some Democrats still consider it a sin that Bolton called Kim Jong Il a "tyrannical dictator" and said life in North Korea was a "hellish nightmare," which it still is. No, the character assassination of John Bolton is an excuse to kill a nomination that mostly Democrats oppose on ideological grounds. President Bush wants Bolton to help prod a dysfunctional U.N. toward reform, contrary to a foreign-policy establishment willing to subjugate U.S. interests for multilateralism's sake. Those opposed to Bolton are opposed to a policy that takes seriously the implications of international agreements, insists on accountability, and emphasizes the primacy of America's own domestic laws. No wonder Senate Democrats Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, both secretary-of-state wannabes who represent the views of John Kerry's failed campaign for president, are out to derail Bolton's nomination. Because they want to avoid a genuine debate over the role of the U.N. that they would be likely to lose, they've resorted to personal attacks. As Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute told Time magazine this week, "This is not the outrage of sincere grown-ups over the malfeasance of a senior executive. John is not about making the world safe for cocktail parties." Rough around the edges or not, Bolton is the right man for the job. Hell, that's what I like best about him, lol! |
| Posted by:.com |
| #1 Agreed,.com.I'll take a stand-up,straight-talking man or woman over a sweet-talking,glad -hander any day. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-04-28 7:36:34 AM |