Fall guy
U.N. Ambassador John Bolton has submitted his resignation from the post the Democrats were not going to let him have, anyway. Never mind that he was the right man for the job at that scandal ridden organization.
President Bush gave Bolton the job temporarily in August 2005, while Congress was in recess. Under that process, the appointment expires when Congress formally adjourns, no later than early January.
The White House resubmitted Bolton’s nomination last month. But with Democrats capturing control of the next Congress, his chances of winning confirmation appeared slight. The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said he saw “no point in considering Mr. Bolton’s nomination again.”
While Bush could not give Bolton another recess appointment, the White House was believed to be exploring other ways of keeping him in the job, perhaps by giving him a title other than ambassador. But Bolton informed the White House he intended to leave when his current appointment expires, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
Opposition to Bolton, besides being partisan politics, was based on his tough, straight up and head on approach to the thuggery around the world that the UN has proven ineffective at dismantling.
Perino said that among Bolton’s accomplishments, he assembled coalitions addressing North Korea’s nuclear activity, Iran’s uranium enrichment and reprocessing work and the horrific violence in Darfur. She said he also made reform at the United Nations a top issue because the United States is searching for a more “credible” and more “effective” (UN).
“Ambassador Bolton served his country with distinction and he achieve a great deal at the United Nations,” Perino said.
“Despite the support of a strong bipartisan majority of senators, Ambassdor Bolton’s confirmation was blocked by a Democratic filibuster, and this is a clear example of the breakdown in the Senate confirmation process,” she said. “Nominees deserve the opportunity for a clean up or down vote. Ambassador Bolton was never given that opportunity.”
Unfortunately, this is a preview of more to come in the new Congress, whether it’s appointments like this one, or nominations to the federal bench or even the Supreme Court if Justice Stevens were to retire.
The UN scandals continue as usual business in a sort of Alice in Wonderland atmosphere, even – and especially – after the revelations on the oil for food dealings. Fox News correspondent Eric Shawn has a good book covering this better than anything I’ve seen, The U.N. Exposed. I read this and wonder now how it can still a) be heading down that dishonorable and misguided path and b) be so untouched by its corruption and ineffectiveness. This is the institution that gave the floor of the Assembly to Iran’s president Ahmadinejad and Venezuala’s Hugo Chavez to rant against the U.S. vehemently, and applauded them when they were done.
