rawlinson – us

Dirty Politics

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I should be disappointed, and I am. President Bush has once again shown a complete disregard for the checks and balances our government is built upon by waiting until the congressional recess to appoint the oft-opposed John Bolton as the US Ambassador to the United Nations. According to our laws this is a legal way of doing things – but just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right.

This is the first time since 1948 that we have had a recess appointment; so clearly it isn’t they way things are normally done. The United Nations (whether you like them or not) is a pretty big deal and our Ambassador to them is a pretty important person in world politics. We need someone who is both has a strong track record with foreign relations, is at least semi-honest, and who will try to work with the other members of the UN to reach positive goals. John Bolton doesn’t really sound like he will meet any of those requirements.

A former colleague testified in April that Bolton was “a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.”
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/01/bolton.appointment/index.html

I can almost tolerate the fact that he is described as a kiss-up; hell, all politicians are to some degree, but the kick-down part doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me concerning his ability to work with other people. Bolton is described as an intimidator who routinely pushed around his peers and subordinates to get his way. While, obviously, it is in the US interest to have policies that favor us in place within the UN it won’t matter if we get them that way by pissing everyone off. Iraq already showed us how easy it is to ignore the UN. Why encourage others to do the same by force feeding our policies on the rest of the world through a bulldog like Bolton?

I’d also like to know what Bolton is hiding. The Senate held up his nomination because they wanted to see some documents that related to his communication with the NSA while he was the State Departments main guy concerning Arms Control. This seems like particularly pertinent information at this juncture in history. Bolton was responsible for Arms Control when we went to war with Iraq based on LIES about illegal arms in Iraq. He also lied to the Senate foreign relations committee about about being part of an investigation by the State Department during the past five years.

If Bolton were even a decent choice couldn’t Bush have gotten him appointed via normal means? Probably. Oh, I know there is always partisan politics but that is why our country was founded on compromise. Bush doesn’t seem to care about that though. It’s either his way or no way.

I’m honestly pretty sick of him as President. This back door appointment falls right in with Bush’s pattern though. If he doesn’t get his way he takes his ball and goes home. As another example look at how he and Bill Frist threatened to get rid of the judicial filibuster, which is complete stupidity. It is an important weapon available to the minority in dealing with controversial issues and getting rid of it is both the tactic of a bully and short-sighted. Now we have judges that have been appointed thanks to bullying tactics, we have an ambassador appointed under questionable tactics, and a war raging thanks to deceitful tactics. Thanks Bush – you’re a real class act

Just to give you a bit of a background I voted for Kerry this time around simply because, in my view, he was the lesser of two evils. When the truth came out that Bush basically lied about why we went to war with Iraq I pretty much lost all faith in him as our leader. If he had been honest about the war, he wanted to finish what his daddy started, then I would have been cool with it. Hell, I’m glad Saddam is out of power (my brother and I were both deployed to Saudi at different points of our time in the Army, he was actively involved in the first war). However, our deployments were based on an honest set of reasoning – Iraq invaded Kuwait. To send our brothers in arms over there without an honest reason to put their lives on their line is one of the most disgraceful things I have ever seen a president do. Our country tried to impeach Clinton for lying about sex – but we let Bush off the hook for war. I guess that pretty much models our societies oddly contradictory views about sex and violence in general.

Bush is a lying ass who is responsible for every American death that happens in Iraq. I think the war on terror is a valid one – so maybe Bush should start fighting it instead of his own personal war in Iraq. If only some tie between Iraq and Al Queda had actually been found. Or just one chemical weapon validated. Man, I kept hoping that the smoking gun would be found just so I could believe my friends and comrades weren’t over there fighting for nothing but a lie. As you can tell I was sorely disappointed.