I have not blogged on the John Bolton nomination as UN Ambassador because I don't feel I have anything to contribute. Steve Clemons in the Washington Note has done an outstanding job of keeping up with the nomination, to include a lot of original reporting. Up until now it has just seemed to me to be an example of an extremist and bad tempered conservative (not religious) who is being moved out of the State Department because he prevents Rice from doing what she needs to do.
It appears obvious that Bolton was placed by Cheney in the State Department under Powell because Powell was an outsider, and Bolton's job was to keep Powell on the reservation ideologically. But now Powell is gone, and Cheney and Bush have no such concerns about Condi Rice. Rice doesn't want him disrupting her State Department, so they wanted to reward him while still getting him out of her hair. Thus the promotion to the UN Ambassador. It has been a nasty political battle since Bolton is so clearly not suited to the position of Ambassador to anything, and his nomination seems to show the contempt the Bush administration holds for the UN.
Last Friday things changed. The story got larger. Colin Powell weighed in and made a direct move against Bolton's appointment to the UN. According to David Frum, quoted by Steve Clemons' post this is also a direct attack by Powell against Bush's Presidency.
For those of us who have wondered where Powell has been for the last four years, this is a really interesting view.
No comments:
Post a Comment