One of the top news stories for today is that President Bush sidestepped the Senate and appointed John Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations.
The reports available at both CNN and the BBC are factual and avoid much by the way of spin. That’s not true of the story found at The Guardian, where the headline screams “Bush bypasses Senate to install neo-con at UN”.
I personally approve of Bolton’s appointment, mainly because I’m hoping that he will increase awareness amongst US voters of the UN’s incompetence and corruption. If he does then a decision by America to pull out of the organization and reduce it to insignificance will come all the sooner.
I think that this is also why Liberals like the staff at The Guardian are upset by Bolton’s appointment.
At any rate, Bolton has a great deal of work to do. I think he should start with the UN renovation scandal that Ginny has been writing about.
I look forward to reading about how Bush’s ‘clearly unjustified appointment of Bolton resulted in massive corruption and general incompetence in the UN’ for say, about the last 20 years.
This is great news. Bolton is disliked by the right people and should be an effective UN representative. Bush demonstrates that he hasn’t lost his nerve. This appointment was smart on both political and policy grounds.
It’ll be interesting to see if he winds up confirmed 1-2 years down the line.
Der Spiegel’s take in English, which is a good deal closer to James’s than you might think.
WOW! I’m shocked at that Der Spiegel article. It’s actually … logical!