Bolton Takes His Leave
It was inevitable, I suppose, but the stalwart, courageous UN Ambassador's departure is still a depressing thing to see:
Even the outside chance that Bolton could be confirmed in the post-election lame duck session went out the window when the defeated Lincoln Chafee made kicking Big John below the belt one more time his smarmy swan song:
Chafee's a liar. The Bush Administration has never had a "go-it-alone" foreign policy. It has always sought to recruit allies via the UN for its foreign policy initiatives. It simply has refused to let international disapproval restrain it from doing what is necessary to protect U.S. national security interests. Or at least it used to.
Chafee blocked Bolton to the end because Bolton isn't a cringing bootlicker, a knee-padded, stripped-pants kisser of enemy asslips who will do anything, immerse himself in any fantasy of any degree of deranged appeasenik irrationality, rather than face international realities and deal with them head-on. No wonder Rhode Island voters couldn't see a dime's worth of difference between him and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Or between either of them and the President. It's difficult not to notice these days how outdated are Donk criticisms of Bush Administration foreign policy. What they still denounce as "unilateralism" and "going it alone" functionally ceased to exist three and a half years ago. Dubya's second term has been little short of Kerryesque, particularly its high-octane appeasement of Iran, the enemy with whom we are directly engaged in Iraq.
This, I think, is reflected in the flaccidity with which the White House accepted Bolton's resignation:
Bush is not going to get one smidgen, one scintilla, one speck of "cooperation" from the incoming Democrat Congress on anything. What this really means is he's going to be totally focused on beating back his own impeachment and will be going the appeasement route to try and deflect six years of pent-up Donk ire. And that includes quitting the war against Islamic Fundamentalism, beginning with fleeing Iraq.
Of course, he will fail, and the country will suffer grievously for it. This is where I can't go along with Hugh Hewitt's stubborn post-election optimism. There is no way in the world that the President can "continue to pursue victory in Iraq" and "not shrink from the almost inevitable confrontation with Iran or from backing Israel and Lebanon's democrats in a confrontation with Syria". He can't do the former without doing the latter in any case, and he is clearly not willing to do the latter. And even if he was, that would just accelerate the impeachment process, and the public that put the Democrats back in power on Capitol Hill would presumably support it.
The bottom line is 9/11 provided us with a window of opportunity to eliminate several dire threats to our national and homeland security, and the Bush Administration has squandered most of it, as the passing of John Bolton from Turtle Bay so demoralizingly symbolizes. The next window will come at a much higher cost, and will probably be ignored as well.
As first reported by NewsMax last month, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton realized that his chances of the Senate approving his stalled nomination were a long shot, so he voluntarily resigned on Monday.
Senate sources tell NewsMax that the embattled ambassador really had no choice.
"The support simply wasn't there," confided a high-ranking staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Even the outside chance that Bolton could be confirmed in the post-election lame duck session went out the window when the defeated Lincoln Chafee made kicking Big John below the belt one more time his smarmy swan song:
"I believe that the go-it-alone philosophy that has characterized this Administration's approach to international relations has damaged our position in the world. Mr. Bolton did not demonstrate the kind of collaborative approach that I believe will be called for if we are to restore the United States' position as the strongest in a peaceful world."
Chafee's a liar. The Bush Administration has never had a "go-it-alone" foreign policy. It has always sought to recruit allies via the UN for its foreign policy initiatives. It simply has refused to let international disapproval restrain it from doing what is necessary to protect U.S. national security interests. Or at least it used to.
Chafee blocked Bolton to the end because Bolton isn't a cringing bootlicker, a knee-padded, stripped-pants kisser of enemy asslips who will do anything, immerse himself in any fantasy of any degree of deranged appeasenik irrationality, rather than face international realities and deal with them head-on. No wonder Rhode Island voters couldn't see a dime's worth of difference between him and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Or between either of them and the President. It's difficult not to notice these days how outdated are Donk criticisms of Bush Administration foreign policy. What they still denounce as "unilateralism" and "going it alone" functionally ceased to exist three and a half years ago. Dubya's second term has been little short of Kerryesque, particularly its high-octane appeasement of Iran, the enemy with whom we are directly engaged in Iraq.
This, I think, is reflected in the flaccidity with which the White House accepted Bolton's resignation:
[A]ccording to several Senate sources, Bolton had several options, none very good:
1. He could press the Senate for a vote on his nomination, but with only one week left in the current Congress, a vote was all but impossible.
2. He could have pressed the White House to pursue a second recess appointment, but several senators tell NewsMax that to circumvent the Senate a second time would have seriously hurt the Administration's relations with Congress at a time when Bush needs its cooperation.
3. Or, he could resign and hope for a different appointment elsewhere in the Administration or on the Hill.
Senate sources also tell NewsMax that Bolton's relationship with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "was not warm."
"She (Rice) wanted him (Bolton) out . . . she did not want to continue to work with him," confessed one senator. [emphases added]
Bush is not going to get one smidgen, one scintilla, one speck of "cooperation" from the incoming Democrat Congress on anything. What this really means is he's going to be totally focused on beating back his own impeachment and will be going the appeasement route to try and deflect six years of pent-up Donk ire. And that includes quitting the war against Islamic Fundamentalism, beginning with fleeing Iraq.
Of course, he will fail, and the country will suffer grievously for it. This is where I can't go along with Hugh Hewitt's stubborn post-election optimism. There is no way in the world that the President can "continue to pursue victory in Iraq" and "not shrink from the almost inevitable confrontation with Iran or from backing Israel and Lebanon's democrats in a confrontation with Syria". He can't do the former without doing the latter in any case, and he is clearly not willing to do the latter. And even if he was, that would just accelerate the impeachment process, and the public that put the Democrats back in power on Capitol Hill would presumably support it.
The bottom line is 9/11 provided us with a window of opportunity to eliminate several dire threats to our national and homeland security, and the Bush Administration has squandered most of it, as the passing of John Bolton from Turtle Bay so demoralizingly symbolizes. The next window will come at a much higher cost, and will probably be ignored as well.
posted by JASmius at 12:10 PM
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