What Bolton Says About Bush

01 August 2005 |permalink | email article

What does the long anticipated recess appointment of John R. Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations say about President Bush?

First, he has the embarrassing distinction of becoming the first president to send an ambassador to the United Nations without a Senate confirmation vote.

Second, he has committed a rare act of defiance of the Senate’s role in the “advise and consent” confirmation process.

Third, he has reconfirmed his contempt for the United Nations by sending a politically damaged nominee and an outspoken vocal critic of the world body to represent U.S. interests there until the next Congress convenes in January 2007.

Fourth, he will never admit that while minority Senate Democrats have blocked the nomination since March, enough queasy Republicans would have voted to kill it as sending a terrible image about U.S. leadership to the free world.

Five, he does not take major character flaws seriously, such as ignoring a revelation that the nominee inaccurately told the Senate that he had not been interviewed in any investigations when, in fact, as The Washington Post reported, the State Department inspector general quizzed him about faulty intelligence involving Iraq.

In summary, he once again has made personal loyalty and in-your-face ideology, not competence, the supreme litmus test in a sensitive nomination. That the nominee is a personal favorite of Vice President Cheney suggests the shadowy influence the former secretary of defense under George H. W. Bush continues to have in baby-sitting this White House.


See Body Politic (July 14): Bolton: Waiting for the Recess

415