John Bolton, U.S. Ambassador to U.N., has handed in his resignation.
This is both a big story and not so much one.
On one hand, it’s not such a big deal. Bolton was a recess appointment and his term was near to an end. Senate Demcorats, backed by a notable turncoat Republican, made it quite clear that there was no way on this green Earth that they were going to confirm him, so it didn’t make much sense to keep fighting that particular fight. Bolton was just too prickly and combative for the likes of Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy. It seems that it’s preferable to have someone in office not quite so interested in directly confronting tyranny and corruption in the UN.
On the other hand, it’s a big deal because Bolton was actually quite effective. It was largely due to Bolton’s efforts that Darfur has been on the UN’s radar for the past few months. He was instrumental in getting the UN involved in the Hezbollah invasion of Israel as wel. On the whole he’s not even been a tenth of the holy terror that we were led to believe he was going to be. We’ve heard no stories of teary-eyed UN functionaries fleeing his offices after having staplers flung at their heads. No diplomats have had their feathers ruffled by Bolton’s mighty moustache. It would have been a good thing, I think, to have him remain for the term with the full support of Senate Democrats, but partisanship being what it is, that wasn’t going to happen.
I’ll be interested in seeing who the Dems suggest the President nominate.
The First Good Thing To Happen To UN Is Gone…
From the AP, Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday…President Bush, in a statement, said he was deeply disappointed that a handful…
No one who has any cojones will be allowed to serve an appointment in the UN. It’s the feminization of American politics.
It was more than one Republican. If itn was only one then he would have passed months ago.
Also if you ever expect the UN to do anything than you have to acy nice to them. Other countries on this planet have agendas that are different from ours. I also find some humor in the fact that the rightwing which has for such a long time been afraid of the takeover of the UN and a One World Government, now finds them so ineffectual.
That’s not true, John. The current composition of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats. If one Republican – Chafee in this case – decided to vote with the Democrats, the vote is tied. Ties do not go to the nominee.
As for the rest, how, exactly, does one make nice to an organization that allows child rape and prostitution from its own employees, corruption on a truly mind-boggling scale that in one huge case killed thousands of Iraqi children through starvation and disease, and coddles genocidal tyrants?
More to the point, why should we make nice to such an organizatioin?