Why on earth did the Bush administration nominate John Bolton for the job of top U.S. diplomat at the United Nations?
He’s no diplomat, that’s for sure. One official summed him up perfectly as “the quintessential kiss-up kick-down guy.” And that’s why they wanted Bolton. They’re still sore at the U.N. They want to bully them.
More important, the Bush administration actually like bullies. Why? Because they’re bullies themselves.
The minute bully number one, Cheney, made himself Vice-President, the bully fix was in. President Bush, the man who had said the U.S. should be humble in its international posture, was soon brought on board and bully-schooled. Let’s face it, the only reason Bush said the U.S. should be humble, was because he was clueless at the time. It’s quite proper to say you should be humble when you're ignorant.
Big question: why did the Bush administration squander the goodwill and worldwide sympathy that 9/11 gave us? Because it brought out the bully in them, of which they have plenty, instead of the moral leadership, of which they have none.
For a start, they’re morality-challenged. They lie to get their way. When they wanted to go to war with Iraq, they bullied U.S. intelligence to supply them with the information they needed to pick a fight with Saddam Hussein. Then, when this intelligence proved to be faulty, did they say sorry? No, like true bullies, they blamed their victim, U.S. intelligence, for providing them with faulty intelligence, when all the poor bastards tried to do was give them the intelligence they demanded.
The fact that the Bush administration squandered all our 9/11 goodwill has become such a mantra that nobody has ever explored what might have been.
Say we had leaders capable of moral leadership. Say we had Nelson Mandela. Heck, let’s lower our sights. Say we had Gore. Would he have been able to seize his Mandela moment? Or would he have turned into a bully like Bush? Gore has actually shown true moral leadership, over the environment. Clinton, on the other hand, might’ve faltered; he’s essentially a good-hearted opportunist bullshitter. (Today our truest Clinton type is, strangely enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger — the best candidate for president the Republicans have, if they change the law that forbids a foreign-born to run.)
A man capable of moral leadership like Gore might have said right after 9/11: we will find the people who did this, and we will punish them. But this is also a wake-up call. We need some self-examination. We must ask ourselves why we’ve backed so many dictatorships, and whether this has really been in our own best interest, let alone in the interest of the people suffering under those dictatorships.
Article comments
1 - Marc
"We avoided the fights that were worth fighting " against the Saudis and Israel’s Sharon. Bullies don’t like to pick fights with strong opponents."
I assume your calling Israels and Saudi Arabia "strong opponents?"
Israel is the strongest of the two but a single US Carrier would take them out in less than 72 hours.
As for SA, I have spent many months attempting to train those idiots. At the first sight of US tanks rolling across the border they would run, fly or drive as fast as they could in the opposite direction.
As for the rest of your post, it is so full of Bush hate vice facts it's hardly worth noting.
2 - sydney
HAHA..
MArc, this is great. You have a way about you that makes easily recognizable as a Bush style republican.
"Israel is the strongest of the two but a single US Carrier would take them out in less than 72 hours."
This is interesting macho, army talk. IT's very impressive how powerful your army is.
"As for SA, I have spent many months attempting to train those idiots"
And you sound like you would be a great teacher too.
"At the first sight of US tanks rolling across the border they would run, fly or drive as fast as they could in the opposite direction."
HAHA.. as would I. Like you said, Isreal is the strnger of the two and yet you still destroy them in 72 hours. Damn idiot saudis.... don't appreciate a good fight.
"As for the rest of your post, it is so full of Bush hate vice facts it's hardly worth noting."
Your post is full of hate too, yet its very noteworthy. It tells me your the idiot. It alarms me to the fact that you are an ambassador to our country. It alarms me to the fact that your have a weapon and a licence to kill. It reaffirms my beleifs about the type of people that support GWB.
3 - Bennett Dawson
Death to the Bullies!
Actually, I rather enjoyed the read. This is more of an examination of a concept, rather than a simple "Bush Hate Rant". Well done Adam, and I agree with a heck of a lot of what you've presented here.
4 - ron s.
and i do think that G aWol Bush showed early signs of his bully mentality 35 years ago when he chose to hide out in the texas guards (and later deserted), rather than participate in actual combat in vietnam...
5 - Dave Nalle
Traditionally it runs against the mentality of bullies to work in groups. While the bully premise is interesting I think it's innacurate. It seems more as if the administration suffers from more of a victim mentality. They aren't bullies, they're more like victims of domestic abuse who finally see a chance to get some of their own back.
Dave
6 - Bennett Dawson
Nice one Dave, So would parental abuse (Iraq vs GB1) cause a child to lash out at the abuser, later in their life?
Bennett
7 - Al Barger
Yes Adam, DAMN that mean old George Bush, bullying those poor terrorists and dictators. They've been just minding their own business, killing and raping and training more jihadists intent on destroying Western civilization, and here comes that big bully W beating up on them for no good reason. That's just what bullies like W do all day.
8 - Dave Nalle
>>Nice one Dave, So would parental abuse (Iraq vs GB1) cause a child to lash out at the abuser, later in their life? <<
Actually, I was thinking in the context of the Bolton nomination to the UN. We've been abused and manipulated and taken advantage of by the Europeans, so maybe this is the reaction.
Dave
9 - sydney
"Actually, I was thinking in the context of the Bolton nomination to the UN. We've been abused and manipulated and taken advantage of by the Europeans, so maybe this is the reaction."
Dave,
You can't be serious. The Europeans abuse America? This is disillusionment.
But I think your parental abuse metaphor has some merit. I would say that the long-standing hate of America is the result of America abusing its power abroad. America has always used its position, as governing body of the world, to its own advantage. Of course America does some good in the process, but overwhelmingly it puts its own interests first, sometimes at a painful cost to its children.
9/11 is very much a violent reaction to this abuse. I don’t condone it, only explain it.
10 - Dave Nalle
Nice to see your little pink butt back at the keyboard, Sydney.
The parental abuse thing could cut both ways, but I think we have the first claim on the reaction. Remember that the European countries are the same countries which were once the colonial powers which tried to use us a s football for a couple of centuries until we told them to go to hell.
But you do have an interesting point - sort of - on 9/11. Both the US and the current islamic world are largely the product of English colonialism gone wrong. How ironic that this should result in the two 'children' attacking each other. It's more like the miscast son Cain (the middle east) attacking the favored son Abel (the US) because he got more of his father's love - or in this case inhereited his imperial mantle.
Dave
11 - sydney
Thanks for the welcome.
"Remember that the European countries are the same countries which were once the colonial powers which tried to use us a s football for a couple of centuries until we told them to go to hell."
Well, that is a long time ago. Surely, America has gotten far more than even. In fact I'd say America has pretty much beaten the world into bloddy submission at this point. There are a few hearty spirits, we'll call them teens, out there that still look to rage back at America, but for the most part the people of the world are resigned to the fate America cuts out for them.
America's big challenge now is to keep the world sedated, depressed, and misinformed. So far, we've done a marvelous job. However, if George bush keeps being so god damn obvious about it, he's going to rekindle thier anger.
12 - SFC SKI
A full moon this week, all the bats are out.
I'll be in the music and books section for the duration.
13 - sydney
stay there for next week to, will ya?
14 - SFC SKI
You left a prepostion dangling.
15 - ron s.
dave nalle sez...
"nice to see your little pink butt back at the keyboard, sydney."
jealous of little butts, are we, lard-ass?
16 - DrPat
Sorry, Ski, I just posted my review of Funding Evil in the Books column. Didn't realize you were planning to use it as a politics-free zone!
17 - Marc
Now children... calm down.
sydney: "You have a way about you that makes easily recognizable as a Bush style republican.
"
Your first mistake, making an assumption you can't possibly support with known facts.
And the second: "It alarms me to the fact that you are an ambassador to our country. It alarms me to the fact that your have a weapon and a licence to kill. It reaffirms my beleifs about the type of people that support GWB.
"
Again, all assumptions and zero facts to support them. And BTW spell check can not only be your friend but provide text that is readable beyond a certain grade level.
And a third in a continuing series of blunders: "And you sound like you would be a great teacher too."
In fact award winning and designated "Master Instructer," by the military.
The quality of the instructor isn't the issue, the quality of the pupils are.
In the Saudi's case they have zero incentive to learn or apply what little they retain as long as they live under the US umbrella of military protection.
18 - Leoniceno
Al Gore would've babbled incoherently, sucked the lips off Tipper, gone to an undisclosed location and never come back.
And the reason we have Bolton is because the leadership doesn't want to play ball with the UN, or give it authority that it does not deserve and cannot back up.
Listen: The UN doesn't have the strength to back up it's international laws, so all it can do is stand around and lecture like a school-marm. Bush and his friends didn't want someone that would wring his hands and go 'yes ma'am.'
I wish the UN members would drop all this altruistic bullcrap and just leave it at a nice place to negotiate.
Power is power, and no one is going to sacrifice it based on someone's moral authority.
Mandela was locked in prison for 20 years. Gandhi tramped all over the country, nearly starved himself, and then was assassinated. These figures of moral authority derive their authority from getting walked all over and being brave in the face of adversity. The United States wants to skip the getting-walked-all-over stage and advance straight to 'you win.'
19 - Aaron Agassi
How many bullies actually see themselves that way? Mostly, they remember their own past victimization. They're no all as completely spoiled, effete and pampered as the Neocons. My prediction is that any massive attack upon Israel would put them in their glory as heroic underdogs. Holding Israel would be harder than holding Iraq or Afghanistan! But getting a leash on the Likud, Jimmy Carter style, would bring hope. Better still, make them ratify the Preamble, at long last. With an ounce of subtlety and good will, Israel can still become the Singapore of the Middle East!
Remember 'Dune?' Attack the Saudis, and they've got their oil wells rigged to blow! But that hardly means that the relatively Free World couldn't spur long arrested progress in their medieval society by the methods of constructive positive intervention according to the George Soros doctrine. That would also help undermine terror. After all, it wasn't an external invasion that finally ousted La Cosa Nostra from Sicily. It was the people. And it is in the people, in popular dissent, that democracy is supposed to invest our trust in social progress.
The politics of bullying is indeed relentless and tiresome. Never mind just foreign affairs. Don't forget Ohio! Can anything be more brazen?
And Dave Nalle, yes, of course bullies run in packs! Are you kidding?
And Leoniceno, indeed, the UN overall is as amoral, opportunistic, corrupt and incompetent as the White House itself! Even the most indispensable programs of the UN are in bad shape. I wish that their was someone with firm and caring hand to help reform the UN rather than just either dysfunctional daddy Repuli-kick or else enabler mommy-Demo-coddle the UN.