Heck, *Yes,* McCain should announce that he's got a spot for John Bolton.
We'll settle for the 'stache.
By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | John Bolton | John Bolton's 'Stache | John McCain — Comments (40) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
AoSHQ reminds us of this little piece by Bolton, which starts nicely, and just keeps going:
Obama the naive
His views on world affairs ignore history and imperil the U.S. and our allies.
By John R. Bolton
June 5, 2008Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions" is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign.
Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War's most dangerous crises.
Such realities should cause Obama to become more circumspect, minimizing his off-the-cuff observations about history, grand strategy and diplomacy. In fact, he has done exactly the opposite, exhibiting so many gaps in his knowledge and understanding of world affairs that they have not yet received the attention they deserve. He consistently reveals failings in foreign policy that are far more serious than even his critics had previously imagined.
Read the whole thing, of course. Drew M of AoSHQ comments:
Allow me to offer some unsolicited advice to the McCain campaign…I know you want to do the whole Maverick thing and Democrats really hate Bolton but the thing is, conservatives love him. Announce he will be a part of your administration and I guarantee a lot more conservatives will swallow hard and support you.
Consider it a threefer….you’ll get a lot of wavering conservatives to support you with some degree of enthusiasm, this appointment will enable you to pull a lot more Maverick [expletive deleted] in other areas while keeping conservative support and oh yeah, it’ll be good for the country.
Yes, yes, and yea, verily. The nice thing about Bolton is that (as the above article by him shows) he suffers fools very, very badly. Plus, giving him a prominent slot in the campaign will infuriate progressives at the very moment that they most need to look halfway normal to the American viewing public.
So it's really a fourfer.
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Heck, *Yes,* McCain should announce that he's got a spot for John Bolton. 40 Comments (0 topical, 40 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I have to say something else, as my habit requires me to at moments like these:
For those of you who despair of the often-prophesied "Death of Conservatism" and the even larger numbers of you who fret about the "end of Republicans" my advice is to stop whining and get busy. I can work with 97% of the Conservatives I know, about 99% of the Republicans I know, and about 89% of the RINOs I know. So we have to stop this pity party and get down to business together, and that means being on the side of our presumptive nominee but also working hard to express our viewpoints to him.
And that means money, folks. It means putting your cash and your work where your mouth is, and I am going to do that.
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if including a guy who couldn't get out of a Republican controlled committee for nomination is such a great idea. I think Bolton's time can be easily filed by dems under "abuse of the executive" (Bolton's recess appointment and never-to-occur confirmation, and another example of nominating a fox to guard the henhouse)and "bad foreign policy" (rubbed many in the int'l community the wrong way, didn't see much improvement during his time).
You're right though. I don't like him one bit. I think he did a better job at the UN post than I thought he was going to, but I still don't like him.
Bolton's major problem in terms of public perception was a Democrat-led campaign to make him look like he abused people beneath him. It was the same psychological ploy that got Larry Summers fired from Harvard, and in neither case was it deserved. That was Bolton's *only* problem - personality in terms of what Democrats in Congress thought.
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...even though I think you knew that it could be seen as buttressing my argument. :)
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
John Bolton INFURIATES me.
My problem with him wasn't that he was gruff on his subordinates so much (he's a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, statistically speaking, he's probably an asshole. I'm sure a lot of these guys and gals, dems and reps, are bad bosses). My anger wasn't (isn't) directed at him so much, but it rather another example of the administration nominating a person who was an opponent of the very agency they were being appointed to (like Johnson of the EPA). Bolton had openly opposed the UN and was known for being abrasive.
The mirror image, for others, might be that it was like putting Marx in charge of of the department of commerce. BAD IDEA.
And, again, you aren't really saying anything that would persuade McCain not to pick him. :)
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
inre - selecting an anti-UN person as the UN Ambassador. But then, doesn't that say something about the views of the President?
Hypothetically (somewhat), if you are the Prez, and have had it up to your NECK with the hapless, corruption-riddled UN, why on earth would you send an ambassador who thought the UN was anything better than a bunch of tin-pot dictators and thugs?
It is the perfect expression of the Executive Branch's viewpoint. That's my opinion anyway.
Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
I agree with you for once: You don't appoint someone as ambassador to an organization who absolutely despises how that organization is run and says so. The job of ambassador requires tact, even schmoozing; and Bolton is tactless.
But I still think John Bolton is a good man, and very knowledgeable. McCain should find him an advisory position in which Bolton can work behind the scenes.
And by the way, you didn't have to invent Marx at the Commerce Department. There was a real-world example on your side of the fence: President Carter's appointment of Andrew Young to be U.N. ambassador turned into a disaster. Because like Bolton, Young kept shooting his mouth off. He called the Ayatollah Khomeini a "twentieth century saint"--Carter was soon to find out otherwise.
So what we should do is appoint someone to be the U.N. Ambassador who will do his best not to offend the sensibilities of the thousands of other career diplomats who have saved themselves from the horrors of their host countries and become Illustrious Potentates by draining the United States of its wealth?
And we shouldn't have anyone there who knows how to ruffle their feathers?
Why?
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If you can't be diplomatic and tactful, you can't be a good U.N. ambassador.
It requires you to smile and smile and smile. Even when you would really like to punch them in the face. That requires someone of a certain temperament, who can always keep their cool under fire. Bolton ain't it.
There are plenty of other jobs Bolton would be great at. But I would never make him spokesperson for the U.S. in an international forum in which the U.S. has only one vote like any other member.
If you want to tell the U.N. to go to hell, that's beyond the ambassador's pay grade. That can only come directly from the President, who makes foreign policy.
as neither the President nor the Sec of State can spend the time in NYC twisting arms.
You are essentially putting a seal of approval on an international institution that actively works against US interests.
But so long as the international upper-crust types respect our civility, I guess that is a good thing (sarcasm off)
and then he can tell the UN to pound sand.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Was one of the three proudest moments I've had during the entire Bush Administration.
And John Bolton should not just be reappointed for doing it, he should have a statue made for him outside U.N. Headquarters in New York City.
I have to wonder with comments like these how much you really understand about how the United Nations actually works?
Do you know who almost received the Nobel Prize for drafting the charter for the International Criminal Court? I'll give you a hint: it was someone who passed so far beneath the radar in this country that he worked with the support of your tax dollars for more than two decades, even though nobody knows his name and he has never been elected to public office, and wasn't even born here.
If the American People knew what kind of sellouts they had been previously sending to the United Nations *with their own money* they would never have let it happen in the first place. The reason the Donks didn't want him there is because they were afraid Bolton would blow the whistle even more than he did. In my case, I wish we could clone him and send a few dozen of him to the U.N.
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Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO
Bolton has said that the UN has a role the play. The fact that he wants to shake things up (and was actually willing to do so) puts him head and shoulders above everyone else in US diplomatic circles.
The UN need criticism. At best it is a bureaucratic mess that does nothing efficiently. At worst, it is human rights commissions dominated by the biggest abusers on the planet.
Being "diplomatic" with such vile creatures is anti-freedom and anti-American.
Making snide comments in public about the U.N. is not a good thing for a U.N. ambassador to be doing.
I remember when Bella Abzug said that they should shut down the Pentagon and turn it into a daycare center. How would you have liked Abzug to be named Secretary of Defense?
There are plenty of jobs in which Bolton's criticisms of the U.N. can be given voice. But the ambassador is supposed to supply the velvet glove. Only the President and Secretary of State can supply the mailed fist inside it.
A big difference, of course, being that SecDef has a little more authority at the Pentegon than Bolton as our UN Rep would have at the UN.
I have no problem with our UN ambassador being harsh with the UN. The reason for the UN is not to have white tablecloth dinners and live as royalty with no purpose or responsibility.
The UN OUGHT to be held accountable by its own members for its uselessness.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. - (Attributed to)Goldwater
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Dependence is Slavery.
McCain should definitely have Bolton as a foreign-policy adviser on his campaign.
But the way the Senate elections look to be shaping up, I doubt that the Senate in 2009 would ever confirm Bolton to any position of real power. President McCain could hire him for his personal staff, which the Senate has nothing to do with.
and advocate for US polices, unilateral or otherwise. No problem. Sure. There are lots of problems with the UN and the US is entitled to advocate in the UN.
But someone who was quoted as saying that the UN doesn't really exist and that no one would notice if 10 stories were lopped off AND who has a reputation for not being diplomatic? I don't think that's really constructive, and honestly, what's the point? Things can only get done in the UN by consensus.
Same thing with the EPA. It is a regulatory agency. If you don't like it, get congress to get rid of it, rather than appointing a guy to the helm who tries to keep the EPA from doing what it was intended to do.
and advocate for US polices, unilateral or otherwise. No problem. Sure. There are lots of problems with the UN and the US is entitled to advocate in the UN.
Jeane Kirkpatrick was my kind of lady. She was U.N. ambassador during the Reagan Administration, and she was pretty effective without making the kind of waves that Bolton did.
And when Reagan first approached her, she was a self-described "AFL-CIO Democrat," the type of hawkish patriotic Democrat that is now nearly extinct in the Democratic Party. Those whom the late AFL-CIO boss George Meany called the "foo-foos" have taken it over.
the Cold War made for a more united west
and the Cold War made for greater US influence due to the threat of the USSR (i.e. countries like Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, etc. were pretty much loyal allies at the UN).
of the world aren't united in any meaningful way.
I used to like reading some of your comments, but your Bolton comments display an absolute lack of understanding of how screwed up the UN is.
Read Bolton's book. You will realize that he spent a lot of time (and was pretty shrewd about) actually trying to mobilize the UN in a varity of ways.
Bringing on someone who was a hated member of the Bush administration would be a dumb move. McCain needs to keep as much distance from the Bush administration as possible.
He was not so high up that most people even know who he is.
More importantly, he makes more sense than anyone else in civilian bureaucracy.
...because frankly: if you are, then you suck at it. John Bolton was hated by progressives, none of whom are going to be voting for McCain anyway. The GOP base likes him, which is why bringing him in publicly is such a good idea for McCain. The rest of the country? - Well, once they stop thinking of the musician, they might remember the 'stache, and maybe something about him being down on the UN.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Send this to McCain:
If Bolton is in your staff, you will have my vote.
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Dependence is Slavery.
Geez your accusations are killing me Moe. I'm simply saying McCain should RUN RUN from the Bush administration if he wants to get elected. Progressives may have been the ones who hated Bolton, but you'd be putting ammunition right into Obama's hands if McCain brought him on.
This is an example of a second-category Watch List type. Fairly decent run.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
I got kicked off of your website (notice the slight change in the user name there). I really hope it's not just because we disagree.
I found this to be a very fun site and I like chatting with people who think differently than me. It is refreshing and eye-opening, but not to be I guess.
Have fun guys/gals.
As I have argued on other posts, Bolton would be an inspired Veep choice. He'd focus the campaign on Obama's hard Left proclivities and he would totally rally the base.
But announcing that Bolton will be a senior advisor would be a nice consolation prize. :)
Bolton as Secretary of State - that would focus the world's mind (as a prisoner's mind gets focused before his impending execution). Unfortunately, I don't see that the Democrats would allow this.
I guess that leaves Bolton as National Security Adviser, as others have suggested in the past.
As in, "I'm proud to be an American" kind of excitement.
Not the Chris Matthews "thrill going up my leg" kind of excitement...
Just want to set the record straight ahead of time.
"An idiotic idea, but it made perfect sense to my troubled mind"...John Wayne
Bolton would also play well with the gun rights folks: he stopped the UN's anti-gun treaty twice. Both occasions were among the high points of the Bush Administration for me: times when the US simply sat back and said 'No', and despite the cajoling, whining and sniping of practically every other country in the world would not be moved from its position that gun ownership is a right.
I'm not even usually considered to be a Conservative and I think this is a fantastic idea.
Bolton would be a terrific choice for virtually any office in the McCain government he's qualified for. He's one of the people I would most like to see in the next Administration, and believe me -- they're going to need him.
In fact, I'll give John McCain $50 through SlateCard right here on this website if he'll consider it. I'll include a time and date stamp if McCain will even broach the subject. John McCain already knows I'm going to help him this summer, but if he wants anything other than pizza and signage, I want Bolton back in the government.
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