April 24, 2005

Bolton Best Able to Bring U.N. Into Real World

Figure this out, if you can. Certain Democratic Senators are throwing a temper tantrum about temper tantrums.

This enigma can only be attributed to sore losers in the last two presidential elections. They ran out of logical discourse when First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton threw a lamp at her husband.

And who can forget Sen. John Kerry’s nasty verbiage toward his campaign staffers and Secret Service bodyguards?

Or Gov. Howard Dean’s screaming meemies directed at assorted Republicans?

Hey, it’s the American way.

Thus, there is a good deal of hypocrisy in the antics of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats -- such as Joseph Biden, Chris Dodd, John Kerry and Barbara Boxer.

They are “shocked, shocked” that John Bolton – President Bush’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations – is alleged to have once used sharp words with a State Department subordinate.

The latter secretly appended a dissent to a recommendation Bolton sent to superiors. Bolton’s error was in not firing the saboteur sneak.

Tom Hubbard, a Washington lawyer, formerly U.S. ambassador to South Korea, complains that Bolton once “slammed down the phone on him.”

Hubbard was upset that Bolton had once speechified that North Korea President For Life Kim Jong Il was a “tyrannical dictator.”

Apparently, it is verboten to commit truth in the United Nations.

Many Americans have the quaint notion that our U.N. ambassador should follow his boss’ policy -- “say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

At this writing, some committee Republicans with tight petticoats have been intimidated by the gossip.

George Voinovich of Ohio, who missed most of the committee meetings, says he “needs more information.” Chuck Hagel of Nebraska allows that he is “troubled.” Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island worries that “the dynamics have changed.”

Committee Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana – no slouch at reading tea leaves -- hastily adjourned proceedings until May 6.

Timid leadership? Or savvy maneuver enabling President Bush to make a recess appointment and thereby force the Democrats to challenge on May 7? Put your money on option 1. Lugar is an instinctive accommodationist.

The whole hullabaloo is part of the gamesmanship to assist or thwart Bush’s appointments to important jobs.

Majority Leader Bill Frist looms off stage with a rules-change-grenade in hand, pin pulled.

For today’s sermon, let us focus on the United Nations’ problems. That august body was conceived after World War II as an improved version of the feckless League of Nations cobbled together after the First World War.

The United States Senate in 1919 refused to confirm the “peace” Treaty of Versailles and become entangled in European affairs. The League was unable to curb an armaments race that led to World War II, and the U.S. become involved anyway.

The United Nations in 1946 formally absorbed the League activities and procedures. Sadly, it also inherited the jealousies and animosities that went with this. This time, the United States jumped in with both feet -- and one hand tied behind its back.

Stalwart United States of America and Britain sit on the U.N. Security Council along with communist China, impotent France and confused Russia.

The U.N. General Assembly of Third World countries – envious of America and trying to hijack its economic benefits – thumb their noses at us.

All the while, the many Third World countries tolerate – sometimes encourage -- genocide, human slavery, degradation of women, pedophilia, confiscation of private property, arbitrary punishment, bribery, brutality and illiteracy.

At the moment, the United Nations is morally bankrupt, a personal sand box for third-world free loaders.

The humongous oil-for-food embezzlement includes Secretary General Kofi Annan’s son and other U.N dignitaries.

Sexual exploitation and rape by U.N. “peace keepers” in the Congo is a sordid disgrace.

The U.N. has been useless in brokering peace anywhere, in forestalling terrorism or in bringing despots to heel.

Bolton famously remarked several years ago: “There is no such thing as the United Nations. Its Secretariat Building (in New York City) has 38 stories. If at least 10 stories were taken off, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

Just so.

Bolton is a hard-nosed realist with a lifetime of experience in a dozen, high-level government posts.

He is the right person to drag the United Nations into the real world.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at linwms@lindseywilliams.org

Williams – Bolton U.N.