Soccer Dad

Democrats fail bipartisanship test

Though he worked in the Augean Stables that is the United Nations, Ambassador John Bolton accomplished quite a bit in his time there. (via Mediacrity) Anne Bayefsky at NRO lists his accomplishments including that he...

had the foresight to refuse to lend credibility to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which as he predicted, has become a mockery of reform undeserving of American support;

raised the profile of the genocide in Darfur and insisted on Security Council action;

led the campaign against corruption at the U.N. secretariat, including the reduction of the gift ceiling for United Nations officials from $10,000 to $200;

defended a free and democratic government of Israel from the relentless onslaught of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic attacks launched across the U.N. system.

The last has been one of the hallmarks of the Bush administration. Its ambassadors have consistently refused to vote for the unbalanced resolutions emanating from the Security Council. From Bolton's remarks explaining the veto of the condemnation of Israel after the accidentaly killing of civilians in Beit Hanoun:

First, we are disturbed at language in the resolution that is, in many places, biased against Israel and politically motivated. Such language does not further the cause of peace, and its unacceptability to the United States in previous resolutions well-known. Secondly, it remains an unbalanced text. Among many such examples are the following: the preambular text equates Israeli military operations, which are legal, with firing of rockets into Israel, which are acts of terrorism. Moreover, its characterization of Israeli military actions as “excessive and disproportionate” constitutes a legal judgment that the Security Council would be ill-advised to make. Third, the proposed resolution calls for the establishment of a fact-finding mission which is, at this point, unnecessary and will do nothing to improve the situation on the ground. The resolution further promises to consider the establishment of an “international mechanism for protection of the (Palestinian) civilian population” – a promise which is unwise and unnecessary and, at any rate, raises false hopes.

At the same time, we are disturbed that there is not a single reference to terrorism in the proposed resolution, nor any condemnation of the Hamas leadership's statement that Palestinians should resume terror attacks on a broad scale, or calls by the military wing of Hamas to Muslims worldwide to strike American targets and interests. More terror, whether directed at Israel or the United States or the European Union Office in Gaza City is not the solution, nor will it enable the Palestinian people to achieve their aspirations.

This has been consistent with what Evelyn Gordon has referred to as "The Frequent Abstainers Club."

The shameful treatment of Bolton by the Democrats (and John Chafee) has now been validated. Unable to defeat Bolton in a full floor vote, the Democrats with two Republican defectors held up his nomination in committee. Bolton has decided that it wasn't worth fighting anymore and submitted his resignation. (My incoming Senator Ben Cardin showed that he is more interested in party loyalty than in doing the right thing. I asked him to speak up for Bolton. He responded a few weeks later to the effect of "I'll look into it." i.e. I won't do a thing.)

Other commentary:
It shines for all has a link filled retrospective.

Israel Matzav -

United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton submitted his resignation this morning, and it was accepted by President Bush. It's a pity, because Bolton was a true friend of Israel, one who didn't hesitate to tell the UN and its anti-Israel institutions where to get off.

Q and O - Suffice it to say, I'm disappointed because I think John Bolton was able, in the short time he was there, to tweak the UN in ways it needs to be tweaked. Sometimes the best way to combat the absurdity of an institution is to just stand up and point it out for what it is. Bolton did that very effectively, and it's a pity he'll be gone from there during a critical time in our and the UN's history.

Right Wing Nuthouse -

Bolton’s “style” was confrontational. He discomfited the comfortable. In an age when business as usual at the UN could get a lot of Americans killed, he said the things that needed to be said, that needed to be heard by those who see anti-Americanism as some kind of gigantic game where tweaking the tail of the lion is considered great sport – a sport that wins support back home amongst the ignorant, the paranoid, the easily misled masses seething under the jackboot of dictatorship and authoritarianism. Blaming America for one’s troubles is so much easier than assigning fault for the poverty, oppression, and murderous, thuggish, brutish government most people in the world live under.

Joshuapundit offers his thoughts but also how another employee at the UN is leaving via a golden platinum parachute

Kofi Annan will also be leaving the UN in December of this year, after negotiating a stunning retirement package for himself behind closed doors - largely funded by US taxpayers.

For a start, the U.N.'s Kofi Annan will cash in with two pensions, tax free. He will not only collect a life-time pension in excess of $12,000 a month, tax-free, but was also allowed to cash in a second pension valued at more than $1 million — also tax-free — when he became secretary-general in 1996.

This, of course is in addition to Annan's tax free salary, his $12,000 per month
UN paid `rent' on billionaire George Soros' estate, free medical and UN paid chauffer and limosine.

I thought that Democrats believed in speaking truth to power, especially this kind of corrupt power.

A blog for all notes Annan's great successes that warranted this extravagance

Thankfully, Kofi's term will end soon enough. His last public appearance at the helm is set for December 19. It can't come a moment too soon. The world needs a serious break from Kofi's brand of human rights and peacekeeping. So do the millions of victims of the violence - including widespread confirmed cases of sexual harassment, rape, and prostitution that are all in violation of UN protocols. It also doesn't address the UNSCAM/Oil for Food scandal that siphoned billions of dollars from humanitarian aid that was meant for the Iraqis and instead ended up lining the pockets of some of those closest to Kofi including his son Kojo

.

Outside the Beltway critiques Atlas Shrugs -

"The tyranny of the minority strikes again.” I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Republicans were defeated in some election or another and are about to assume minority status. Of course, those who voted–let alone know who John Bolton is–are technically a minority.

Actually it was a minority who held it up to this point. If President Bush had nominated Bolton originally when he had a minority in the Senate I'd agree with OTB. But Bush nominated him when he had a majority (including some Democrats) in the Senate. Knowing that they didn't enough for a fillibuster, the Democrats in the foreign relations committee wouldn't let the nomination to the floor where it would have won easily (though not overwhelmingly.) It was the six Democrats and two Republicans (though Voinovich changed his mind) - 8 senators - who didn't allow the vote.

Kevin Dayhoff looks at this as one more way the Democrats have failed bi-partisanship.

As much as the resignation caught many of us by surprise - - it was to be expected. Much of the conversation by the Democrats about bi-partisanship is just that – cheap and empty talk; so that they may get the sycophant mainstream media writing cheery, sugarcoated stories about how wonderful and magnanimous they are going to be after the last election.

The incomparable James Taranto suggests that President Bush nominate Rudy Giuliani - to increase his chances of becoming president

Giuliani is running for president (or at least he's formed one of those "exploratory committees"), so why would he want to get stuck at Turtle Bay? Well, here's one reason. There have been 29 U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., and one of them, George H.W. Bush, later made it to the White House. New York City has gone through 108 mayors, and here is a complete list of the ones who became president: .

Democrats would probably be reluctant to confirm Giuliani if they thought it would help his Presidential prospects. But then again he now has gravitas now that he's been part of the of the Iraq Study Group.

Lots more at Memeorandum.

Jewish Current Issues tells us of John Bolton's proudest moment at the UN

John Bolton -- who once said that a “highlight of my professional career was the 1991 successful effort to repeal the General Assembly's 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, thus removing the greatest stain on the UN's reputation" -- resigned as U.N. Ambassador yesterday.

Does that sound like someone who doesn't believe the UN should exist, or someone who believes that the UN shouldn't betray its founding principles? Naturally, of course, the New York Times gets it wrong.

This page opposed Mr. Bolton’s nomination in the first place, arguing that at the very minimum, an ambassador to the United Nations should be someone who believed the organization deserved to exist. Mr. Bolton has always been hostile to the U.N., and to the whole spirit of consensus-seeking diplomacy it embodies. When Democrats and moderate Republicans kept the nomination tied up in the Senate, Mr. Bush characteristically insisted on having his own way by giving Mr. Bolton an interim appointment while Congress was out of session.

Funny but "this page" of the NY Times doesn't believe that Hamas is incapable of making peace with Israel since it doesn't believe that Israel should exist. And what Bolton has been hostile is the deep seated corruption that permeates the organizaiton. As his statements above showed, the consensus building needed to be just and correct and not mindlessly accepted simply because it was a consensus.

Clearly the Times isn't much bothered by the travesty of dictators claiming moral superiority because they were able to form a majority while denying that right to their citizens at home or the corruption that if practiced by a business would have the editors crying for more legislative oversight.

Nope. The Times was all too willing to be complicit in the corruption and antisemitism. John Bolton stood against those. No wonder the Times didn't like him. He has a moral compass.

UPDATE: Mentioned at Buzztracker.

Technorati tags: John Bolton, United Nations, Kofi Annan, New York Times.

Posted by SoccerDad at December 5, 2006 2:06 AM