I don’t know a lot about John Bolton, certainly less than I should, but even if I thought he were the swellest guy in the world, this would piss me off.
Julia Rietmulder-Stone's blog | ramblings about poetry, politics, & Harrisburg
I don’t know a lot about John Bolton, certainly less than I should, but even if I thought he were the swellest guy in the world, this would piss me off.
First off, even if John Bolton wasn’t a prick (which he is) and didn’t intimidate and attempt to have fired intelligence analysts who disagreed with his views (which he allegedly has), he’s still the wrong person to serve as U.N. ambassador. This, as the BBC article notes, is a man “who once said that if the U.N. building lost 10 storeys, it would not make a bit of difference.†Apparently Bolton is a loyal soldier, which definitely counts for something, but he’s also a loose cannon from whom Bush should have distanced himself, especially given the already tenuous opinion of the United States among the rest of the world. As flawed as the United Nations might be, the answer is not sending in a lunatic whose idea of reform involves a lighter and a can of gasoline.
However, in defense of Bush, the BBC article is wrong when it describes the recess appointment, a power granted to the president under Article II Section 2 of the Constitution, as “rarely invoked†and implies that Bush did something sinister or out the ordinary. According to Fred Kaplan in a June 20 Slate article, “Bush’s father made, on average, 20 recess appointments per year when he was president. Ronald Reagan made 30. Bill Clinton, faced with a more hostile Congress, issued nine per year. Dwight Eisenhower used the clause to appoint three Supreme Court justices — Earl Warren, William Brennan, and Potter Stewart — all before elections. John F. Kennedy ushered Thurgood Marshall into a circuit court bench to evade racist resistance from Southern senators.†The clause allows the Senate to resume advice and consent powers over appointees “at the end of their next session,†or January 2007 in this case.
Hopefully, Bolton won’t have blown up the United Nations by then but will have acted like the jackass I know he is, at which point the Senate can terminate, er, remove him.