At a time of rising threats, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations now resides in limbo, led by an ambassador who has turned in the best performance since Jeane Kirkpatrick — and who, for his pains, now seems all but certain to be gone when the Senate adjourns, possibly within about a week.
The cold comfort may be that the UN is an institution so bent that no lone ambassador, however decent, diligent and dilomatically skilled (the Heritage Foundation has assembled a list of testimonials ), can do much to set it straight. But as far as it matters at all to have U.S. interests well-represented there, the fate of Ambassador John Bolton serves by now as shorthand for a foreign policy turning to mush. It is passing strange that in a time of rising threats on many sides, we now have Condoleezza Rice’s State Department eagerly rolling over to “talk” with Syria and Iran; President Bush preparing to accept dog-eared advice from the Iraq Study Group; and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, courtesy of Rhode Island’s swing vote Senator-in-a-snit Lincoln Chafee, busy smothering for a second time the nomination of a diplomat who acts on the principle that he is serving not the interests of a blinkered and paper-pushing Washington bureaucracy, but of the American people.
. . .
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
. . .
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Bourne2y(odel?)seems to write with conviction. -Go back to your yodeling!
The pratfalls of congress and the hijinx of that bunch at the UN might be entertaining were it not for the islamists who seem to read the west’s bickering as their opportunity to do what they do. And say what you will about perspective and ethnocentrism, I say that what they do lacks humor.
Thank you for your voice on this, Claudia
I still have respect for Bush, even if he refers to Mr Baker as “Jimmy”. I am willing to bet that he drives right around this so-called “Baker Report” and used the coming-up Pentagon Generals’ Report.
Now, what will we bet, eh?