This Bolton Business

In the history of American politics, there is an interesting trend in the rise and fall of the dominance of each political party. Major power shifts are marked by critical elections in which the once dominant party loses badly due to a major ideological backlash by the electorate. The winning party then continues to aggregate power over 20 or 30 years or more, becoming increasingly radically ideological, until their own zealotry is their downfall in another critical election. Such was the life-cycle of the Democratic party from 1932 until the election of 1980.

Now the Republican party is clearly in charge, controlling the White House and both houses of Congress--an enviable achievement. Yet, they may be sowing the seeds of their own decline as we speak, in the same way that Congressional feeding of the federal bureaucracy's exponential obesity in the 1970s was one source of the Democratic party's subsequent losses. Proof of this lies in the ascent to power of the party's right wing, which has now come to characterize it's political center. The party was able to support and launch a war justified by false evidence, evidence that was in fact even obviously false or nonexistant at the time. Since then, they have justified this massive infraction on public trust by saying that Saddam Hussein was dangerous and therefore the war was still justifiable. This is irrelevant damage control. Whether Saddam Hussein was a threat or not is about the furthest one can get from the real issue at hand. Kim Jong Il and the institution that is OPEC are bigger threats to our nation than Saddam Hussein was. Simply being a threat is not a justification for war. The issue is whether the intelligence community and the administration used evidence in their justification that was intentionally falsified or blown out of proportion. While I obviously can't make an inquiry fit to answer this question fully, I can say that I personally never heard true definitive evidence that Saddam Hussein was threatening. I heard about a few mobile trailers and I heard vague unsubstantiated rhetoric about "massive stockpiles of weapons". Furthermore, I would like to make one additional observation. Since there have been absolutely no traces of dangerous stockpiles of weapons (other than some old, empty warheads, with possible traces of chemical weapons sitting in the middle of nowhere), it seems very peculiar that there ever could have been such prolific evidence to justify a war. It's very strange indeed that we could honestly happen upon so much evidence of something that doesn't actually exist, and equally odd that none of this evidence has been released to the public. Just a thought.

While there are numerous examples of it, the issue of John Bolton provides another scrap of evidence that the zealotry of the Republicans' right flank is driving the party out of control. It is a fact that many strong conservatives greatly dislike the UN. Certainly, the institution is in need of reform and restructuring, and any true observer of the UN has seen the massive changes that Kofi Annan has made during his tenure and continues to make. So the administration decided to appoint John Bolton, a very right-wing conservative, to the post of UN ambassador. Bolton stated, [M]any Republicans in Congress--and perhaps a majority--not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a 'make my day' outcome. Indeed, once the vote is lost… this will simply provide further evidence to may why nothing more should be paid to the UN system." His prolific speaking and writing provide much more evidence of this nonchalont attitude toward the existance of the UN. In addition, there are numerous criticisms about his personal integrity and treatment of subordinants. Not only does he represent the most idiotic choice for a UN ambassador, but he is a stupid nominee for any kind of diplomatic office. It is an incredibly bad idea to appoint someone with such a disagreeable attitude toward the UN to the ambassadorship at a time when we are trying to encourage reform and to repair our terrible reputation in the institution. The appointee needs to be someone of strong personality who is also agreeable and good at working with other people to move in a common direction. Furthermore, Bolton is hardly fitting for being a diplomat at all. The second definition of diplomat that many dictionaries list after "an ambassador" is "One who uses skill and tact in dealing with others." We have seen nothing but the very antithesis of that phrase in this individual.

But this is precisely the point that I am making. The Republican right-wing has hijacked the party and flown it so far from center that they are doing things like inventing their own reality with regards to logic, evidence, and the word "diplomat." In this new world of reinvention, logic is something that is invented by the user, and a diplomat is someone who tells them what he's going to do and then does what he told them he'd do. No wonder the right-wing AM talk show hosts accuse schools of being instruments of liberal political socialization. Those godless institutions espouse radical values outside the American mainstream like criticism, analysis, discourse, and worst of all, thinking. They weren't lying when they named them the "liberal arts."