Posted on 12/05/2006 5:52:57 AM PST by Quilla
It’s official: John Bolton has been sacrificed. The question is, how far will the dagger plunge into the back of America’s foreign policy interests?
President Bush has accepted Bolton’s resignation after the recess-appointed UN ambassador was unable to secure a vote in the Senate. The Left, led by a vindictive Lincoln Chafee eager to get back at the president he blames for his much-deserved defeat, refused to bring the Bolton nomination to the floor.
Unlike the first stormy Bolton hearing, there was little question he would have been confirmed this time. In April 2005, it seemed unlikely Bolton could be referred out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This time, Sen. George Voinovich, R-OH, dropped his once-lachrymous opposition, and even if Chafee voted no, he could have been referred to the full body on a tie. According to White House spokesman Tony Snow, 58 senators had pledged to confirm Bolton – two too few to keep the Legislative Branch Left from consolidating its grasp on foreign policy.
All the Left’s campaign talk of the coveted “power of oversight” notwithstanding, at this crucial moment in world history, the United States is without representation in the world body, because the Senate refused to perform its duty to “advise and consent” the president vis-à-vis his appointments.
For Bolton, no good deed went unpunished. “John Bolton’s been a tireless advocate for the United States at the UN,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accurately recounted. Bolton helped cap the UN budget in the wake of the Oil-for-Food scandal, freezing funds until it adopts reforms to curb its endemic corruption. This should be a top priority for a party committed to expanding the scope, mandate and authority (and naturally, the budget) of the world body over its member nations. (John Kerry once said, “I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”) He has undertaken exhaustive efforts to see the United Nations addresses the twin nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea. Bolton also advised against endorsing the “new” UN Human Rights Council, dominated by Amnesty International superstars like Cuba, China, and Saudi Arabia. Although he was branded a firebrand, “kiss-up/kick-down” roughneck by his Senate opponents in 2005, his “consensus-building style” should have humiliated them. Instead, he is now seeking another position, while they continue to man the levers of power in Washington. His eventual successor will note well the assurances he must make – and the policies he must pursue – if he wishes for a longer tenure than his predecessor.
These are the first fruits of the Democratic Party’s bitter plan to micromanage President Bush into an Iraqi surrender – sorry, “strategic redeployment to a safer position.” In the coming two years, the new Congressional titans will unleash increased filibusters, obstructionism, independent counsels, impeachments, and open-ended investigations against whomever continues to buck their desire to throw American prestige and the nascent Iraqi democracy under a bus.
Aside from cutting off funds in the midst of a war, constitutionally the Congress has little power over a war already in progress, an area reserved since the days of Washington, to the commander-in-chief. The time for Congress to speak was before the invasion, when Congressional Democrats, lacking the courage to vote their beliefs, voted for the war before they voted against it. Now they seek to hand the terrorists the greatest propaganda victory since the withdrawal from Somalia. Bin Laden regularly cites that, along with Vietnam and Lebanon, as his two main inspirations. A Baghdad caliphate would furnish international terrorism with a recruiting message beyond compare.
President Bush need not surrender the political battle. He could have appointed (or could still appoint) Bolton as “Acting United Nations Ambassador,” allowing him to remain in Turtle Bay for 210 days. Bush could strengthen his own negotiating power with another recess appointment of a “hardliner,” as I outlined here. If Bolton were re-nominated two months after the recess appointment of Alexander Haig, Jeane Kirkpatrick, or Jesse Helms, he might appear more palatable. And it would serve notice to the surging Capitol Hill leftists that the president had joined the battle to preserve his own role in setting American foreign policy.
After Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, some suggested Bush would offer Bolton as his second blood sacrifice to the Democratic Party Left.
If Bolton is replaced by Jim Leach or a Robert Gates clone, the Bush Doctrine’s cause of death may safely be classified as suicide.
Excellent suggestion!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: This too can be blamed directly on that God-damned traitor Bill Frist for not using "the nuclear option" when he had the votes for it.
So how does the Dimocratic Party get credit for the fact Linc Chafee's an @ss?"
What's being sacrificed is our country, our safety and security, and our freedoms. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
"The Left, led by a vindictive Lincoln Chafee... "
A fine illustration of the dangers of having a RINO in the ranks.
Didn't Dr. Keyes once hold that UN post? I wonder if he is available?
Bolton's another of long line who've had to fall on their sword. Bush and the "republican" congress (I retch when I type that) have wasted one of the biggest opportunities to forward conservatism in this country.
Sacrificed? Not quite. To be sacrificed he'd have had to have some remote chance of actually being confirmed, which he does not.
Though, I will miss the opportunity for hearings that would have no doubt been good TV.
The good news in this is that Bolton was wasted on the U.N. We can afford to have somebody ineffective and incompetent there, in keeping with the stature of the institution.
I'd like to see Bolton in a more useful place. I hear there's a undersecretary position open at State, and that place could use a little shaking up.
I, too, blame First. The very term 'nuclear option' (coined by the democrats) was outrageous and insulting by itself.
I've watched liberals cheer for John Bolton's resignation. However not one can tell me what he did wrong or why they don't like him.
Good Comments.
If the UN was a no-nonsense organization we would not be at war in Iraq. Bush sent a no-nonsense person to the UN, and the totally-nonsense Democrats saw that as a problem.
*sigh* .. can't have someone standing up for America in the UN can we?
Your exact point was echoed by Herb London, President, The Hudson Institute, on Bill Bennett's radio show this morning. He has asked numerous democrat senators their problem with Bolton, and never once received a specific response.
As long as our society continues to trivialize traditional male traits (and in many cases demean and look down on traditional 60's values) while worshiping at the altar of perceived political correctness (as defined by the condescending liberal elite via the MSM)--that question will be more and more difficult to answer every day.
Our 'foo-foo' society has become intoxicated with the liberal cocktail--of high-minded idealistic naivete' mixed with ounce of manufactured feminine compassion in a big snifter of historical amnesia. (I'd rather have a ice cold BUD out of the bottle).
While I mourn the loss of Bolton in any public service position - why would anyone want to serve in an organization in which the head honcho Kofi declares that Iraq was better off under Saddam?
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No matter who is nominated to replace Bolton, we will wind up with someone wishy-washy and contrary to our interests. All the more reason for us to bail out of the UN and kick the organization out of the U.s.
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