Bolton to Leave Post as U.S. Envoy to U.N.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton speaks outside the Security Council chambers at the United Nations in New York in this October 13, 2006 file photo. Facing opposition from key senators, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton will leave office in a matter of days, the White House announced on December 4, 2006. REUTERS/Chip East/Files (UNITED STATES)

Well, the big non-news story today is John Bolton's resignation as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. This is off the New York Times:

President Bush today ended his efforts to have John R. Bolton confirmed by the Senate as United Nations ambassador and said Mr. Bolton will leave the position, which he has held for the past year after being chosen between Congressional terms, this month.

Mr. Bolton became the ambassador under a recess appointment made by President Bush, bypassing the usual requirement of Senate confirmation after Democrats blocked a floor vote on the nomination. Because it was a recess appointment, Mr. Bolton’s term expires when the current Congress ends its term later this month.

Mr. Bush had planned to push for confirmation during the current lame-duck session of the Republican Congress, which would have allowed Mr. Bolton to continue as ambassador. But today’s announcement suggests that the White House realized it was not going to receive the necessary votes.

And how is the Bush administration taking this? Like a spoiled brat! Continuing with the Times article:

President Bush said that he accepted “with deep regret” Mr. Bolton’s decision to end his service.

“I am deeply disappointed that a handful of United States Senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate,” Mr. Bush said. “They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time.”

I am deeply disappointed that a handful of United States Senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate. Guess what Mr. President--Bolton's nomination was sunk by a single moderate Republican senator named Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Chafee was defeated in the November midterm elections by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse--an election that was actually a referendum by the American people against your administration's failed policies, which would include the Katrina fiasco, Iraq, and perhaps even the insistence for nominating the neoconservative John Bolton to the U.N. Even as you declared to the American people that you would cooperate with the new Democratic congressional leadership, you quickly broke your own promise of cooperation by again re-nominating Bolton to the U.N., re-submitting six extremist judges to the federal bench, and even in your insisting that the Republican Congress quickly pass your controversial Terrorist Surveillance Act before the Democrats take control in January. In sum, your administration continues to believe that "cooperation," or even "bipartisanship" with the Democrats in Congress is simply another term for "rubber-stamp." Instead of cooperation, you continue to engage in confrontation with Congress, and then when you can't get your way, you blame the other side for being "obstructionist." Excuse me Mr. President, but I would say that it is YOU that is behaving in an obstructionist and stubborn manner. For six years, your administration has polarized, marginalized, and finally demonized half of the American electorate. Anyone who has criticized your administration's policies has been called traitors, terrorists, or even accused of committing treason against the United States, while at the same time your administration have broken U.S. laws in outing a CIA agent to discredit and destroy a critic to your administration, denied basic legal rights of trial and counsel to prisoners, engaged in warrantless spying on American citizens, and shredded the Constitution in your own zeal towards accumulating dictatorial powers--all in the name of fighting terrorism. And now that you can't get your way with the rubber-stamp Congress that you've had for the past six years, you behave like a spoiled brat in blaming others for your own selfish and incompetent behavior--"a handful of United States Senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate....They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time." It is interesting how one outgoing Republican senator, Lincoln Chafee, who opposed the Bolton nomination, has been morphed into "a handful of United States senators," which has become another codeword for the Democrats in Congress. Mr. President, the Democrats in Congress have not disrupted "our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time." It has been your administration's incompetence and cowboy diplomacy in pushing for American imperialism into the Middle East and throughout the world that has disrupted the U.S. diplomacy, possibly for generations. John Bolton's removal could become the start of removing your stain in our nation's diplomatic history, and help bring this country out of the morass that your PNAC neoconservative ideology has gotten us into.

Good riddance to John Bolton.