I like this (from NRO):

"Bolton's view--with which this column agrees--seems to be that the U.N. is useful and worthy of respect only insofar as it responds to American leadership and serves American interests. The Democrats' view, by contrast, seems to be that the U.S. has an obligation to follow the U.N., whether it acts in America's interests or not. That's why, for example, John Kerry*, who voted in 2002 to authorize U.S. military force in Iraq, changed his mind the next year when the U.N. Security Council balked at passing a resolution expressly permitting such action.

Only that's not quite right. The classic example of the U.S. leading the U.N. was the first Gulf War. In November 1990 the Security Council passed Resolution 678, which authorized member states "to use all necessary means," including military force, to liberate Kuwait, then under occupation by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The resolution also "request[ed] all States to provide appropriate support" to that end.

In January 1991 Congress obliged. The House voted 250-183, with 179 Democrats voting "no," to authorize U.S. military force. The Senate vote was 52-47, with 45 Democrats voting "no." Only 86 House Democrats and 10 Senate Democrats voted in favor.

Among the negative votes were all five current Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who were then in Congress: Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Paul Sarbanes and then-Rep. Barbara Boxer. All told, 25 of the 28 current Senate Democrats who were in Congress in 1991 voted against the Gulf War. (The three who voted for it, in case you're wondering, were Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Tom Carper of Delaware and Harry Reid of Nevada.)

So the U.N. gave the thumbs-up for military force and asked for help, and most Democrats balked. Only a handful of lawmakers, including Sen. Jim Jeffords, ex-Sen. Bob Graham, Reps. John Dingell and Jim Leach and a few other House members (along with Al Gore), took what might be considered the consistent pro-U.N. position, supporting the liberation of Kuwait but not Iraq. Most Dems who now pose as champions of the U.N. showed their disdain for the world body by voting to refuse its request for help in 1991.

It seems fair to conclude, then, that most liberal Democrats, like Bolton, are pro-U.N. only when it suits their purposes--and that their purposes are the opposite of Bolton's. That is, for the Democratic left, the U.N. is useful and worthy of respect only insofar as it acts as an obstacle to American leadership and an opponent of American interests."

strategic bombing
 

Don't be a schmo. You've made our disagreement clear. If we kill a lot of civilians in a war, I see a problem, and you say, "life is hard." I think that's a callous and dumb thing to say, but I'm unlikely to persuade you with my next post, so I'm not going to try.

Your regard for the fate of Japanese civilians is in odd juxtaposition to your concern for the Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein.

strategic bombing
 

Maybe they recall that they were on the right side of reform in 1994, and don't want to be on the side of corruption next year.

I don't think DeLay is the most pleasant guy in D.C., but I also don't think that has much to do with what ails him.

strategic bombing
 

In some ways I agree with this and others I don't. Delay is a slime ball, like many other pols on capital hill, but in a relative sense, I don't think he deserves to go (getting him out of the public eye is a different story, see trent lott). I'm unsure on Bolton, but given that Powell seems to be working back channels to derail the nomination, it seems there may be fire to that smoke.

But the bottom line is that Delay is the new Gingrinch/Bush. The Dems needs an evil doer to rally around, and they lost pinning that to Bush. Hastert is too "nice" and Frist is an idiot, but not evil. Delay is there man, and they want to ride him to 2006.

strategic bombing
 

It has to do with who's on which side, Ty.

strategic bombing
 

That one was due to technology (we broke their code and were able to get one of our carriers sorta fixed in 24 or 48 hours when they thought it was sunk). Please consider my statement modified accordingly.

Horsecrap.

As a general principle and as an institution as a whole, the U.N. is useful and worthy of respect whether or not it is responding to American leadership and serving American interests on the particular matter in question. In politics and in diplomacy, as in the more mundane aspects of "real life," it is important and valuable to hear, consider, and respect the views of others (people or countries) -- and to sometimes adjust one's actions accordingly -- even if those views run counter to your own.

S_A_M

P.S. This basic realization is apparently, from most reports, where "Ambassador Bolton" may fall short.

strategic bombing
 

Accepted, and my apologies for any tone that was taken as hostile*.

Nevertheless, I will note that it is very difficult to accept a single cause as being attributable to the outcome of events like Midway. There were a lot of things that could have changed the outcome. For example, if the Japanese didn't change their minds from planning to 1.) load their planes for a naval battle to 2.) load their planes for bombing Midway and back to 1.) load their planes for a naval battle, it is at best dubious that McCluskey's squadron et seq. would have a.) been able to enter the airspace around the Japanese carrier group unopposed and b.) been able to catch Japanese carriers with bomb racks and fuel lines spread out all over the decks while the planes were being reloaded/reconfigured.

With respect to a.), maybe the Japanese would have been able to launch more fighters for their combat air patrol. With respect to b.), maybe the Japanese carriers wouldn't have blown up so quickly.

Anyway, I'm just sayin. The code-breaking and technology certainly improved the odds of an American victory at Midway but, as always, there were a lot of things that could have drastically affected the outcome of that battle or the war.


Hello

* Note: him and LDE are the only male posters who I will take this passive tone with. The rest of y'all beeyotches can forget it.

strategic bombing
 

That's absolutely right, for all the reasons you suggest. I remember as a kid reading a book written by one of the participants at Midway, and all of the lucky breaks seemed to go the right way for the US of A. Good thing we had Henry Fonda on our side (see "Midway").

Speaking of movies, Ty, maybe if that Japanese sniper bastard hadn't shot the Duke in the back at the end of "The Sands of Iwo Kima," I wouldn't feel so strongly.

I think that the concept - the aspiration - of the UN is useful and worthy of respect. Nations should have an ever-present and always-open forum in which to communicate. But the UN hasn't done this well, and it has done too many other things that have been affirmatively bad, whether because a good idea was botched, or a bad impulse was followed.

It will never work as a world government. It will never be given power over the sovereignity of nations. And, without some drastic restructuring, it will never amount to more than a soapbox for countries, people, and ideas that would be ignored or ridiculed elsewhere.

Bolton would be absolutely perfect as our representative in that body.

strategic bombing
 

Island undefended,
American fleet unready;
Torpedoes or bombs?

strategic bombing
 

[shudder]

So, send a clown to the circus? I think you're discounting a lot of the good work the UN has done on humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, but I'm not going to say it hasn't fucked things up in the past or that it should be a candidate for "world government." I'm not sure anyone at the UN is taking that position either, though I could be wrong.

As a forum for communication, why has it failed? The airing of views that other people find ridiculous is not necessarily a pointless exercise where millions of people subscribe to the "ridiculous" point of view and might just be inclined to start shooting over it.

I am, regarding the humanitarian stuff, but not unfairly. What the public started hearing during the tsunami relief effort - that the UN primarily moves in while others are giving and delivering aid, has meetings, issues press releases, and then asks for more funding - has been fairly typical of the UN effort for quite some time. I say this based on anecdotal stuff from friends in NGO's, and government relief operations, almost all of whom hold the UN relief people in no small contempt (and most of whom, to head this response off, are fairly hard-core Dems.) I know people in the military who have interacted with UN functions, and they, too, seem to lack love and respect for the UN. You have to wonder, at least, when the people who actually deal with the org dislike it so uniformly. The best thing they do, actually, is PR about themselves.

(ETA - I didn't say it failed at the communications forum idea - it just hasn't done that well. Its rather antiquated rules concerning membership, representation in its various arms and committees, and its whole power distribution (which fails to match reality these days) has led to a lack of any real discourse beyond the shouting of slogans back and forth. I think that its mission calls for something more than that.

I've heard similar stuff about the UN's higher-profile efforts, but much better things about the work of the specialized agencies, which have been instrumental in dealing with epidemics and disasters.

Well, yeah. (Duh.)

I agree that on any given day there's a tremendous amount of nonsense emanating from the UN. The world needs a soapbox, though, because otherwise there's nowhere else to play. The nonsense bothers me too, but it doesn't lead me to support a guy whose articulated idea of constructive diplomacy is blowing out 10 floors of the building.

I agree, he should be confirmed as the embodiment of Bush's attitudes toward the UN. The Dems should get out the way here, and focus on buying popcorn and sodas to watch the first assault trial arising from Bolton's execution of the Bush Deux Redux style of nicer diplomacy by sticking the Italian Diplomat's head in a toilet bowl on the 48th floor.

2. DeLay in '08!

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

" Bolton is not of the "U.S. out of the U.N., and U.N. out of the U.S." persuasion. He believes that the United States should lead the body, rather than be led by it. Bolton was our point man in seeing to it that the infamous "Zionism is Racism" General Assembly resolution was overturned.

He thinks the United Nations has been useful at times. The Security Council helped negotiate and monitor a truce between Iran and Iraq in the late 1980s. The United Nations supervised free elections in Namibia, and provided monitors as Soviet troops departed Afghanistan and Cubans left Angola. The first Gulf War, Bolton argues, was the only historical example of the Security Council behaving as the United Nations' founders envisioned. That vigorous reversal of blunt aggression was possible only because of American leadership.

But Bolton's approach to the United Nations, which was also the approach of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, is anathema to U.S. liberals. During the confirmation hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer played a tape of Bolton's frank description of the United Nations' top-heavy bureaucracy. "There are 38 floors to the U.N. building in New York. If you lost 10 of them, it wouldn't make a bit of difference," Bolton is heard to say.

Triumphant in her belief that she had caught Bolton out, Boxer declared: "You have nothing but disdain for the United Nations. You can dance around it, you can run away from it, you can put perfume on it, but the bottom line is the bottom line." Sen. Joseph Biden wondered aloud why Bolton even wanted the job.

Bolton was placid during his grilling -- though why so few Republicans chose to attend the hearing is anybody's guess. Perhaps sensing that substantive policy differences with Bolton would not be enough to sink his nomination -- he is, after all, supposed to represent President Bush at the United Nations, not President Kerry -- the Democrats switched tactics. This is a well-worn pattern by now. We saw it with Robert Bork, and then with Clarence Thomas and countless others. It is the find dirt game. Or perhaps the invent dirt game.

It has now reached truly hilarious depths. It seems, don't say this too loud, that Bolton has been known to yell at subordinates, particularly those who lie to him. This intelligence has led Democratic senators -- and two very limp Republicans, George Voinovich and Chuck Hagel -- to conclude that Bolton lacks the proper "temperament" for a high-ranking position in the U.S. government. Can anyone say this with a straight face?

Here's the real bottom line: Republicans have permitted this to happen. If the president had backed Bolton more forthrightly; if Republican senators had supported him during his hearing; and if two Republicans had not bid for The New York Times' approval, this could not have happened."

It's the new, R-lite, no-balls party.

Microsoft and Gay Rights
 

Article in today's NYT says gay groups are upset with Microsoft, which has long been a strong proponent of gay rights in the workplace, for suddenly reversing itself and opposing a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The article suggests that Microsoft was influenced by a church group that had threatened a nationwide boycott of Microsoft products.

My question: How the hell does anyone boycott Microsoft products?

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

Serious question: Why do you think Powell has not spoken in support of Bolton?

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

Hey, this is fun!

Cohen:

"[F]or reasons having to do with caution, prudence and a debilitating sense of fair play, I have until now withheld my first -- and only -- impression of John Bolton, probably destined to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: He's nuts.

I recognize that, as a diagnosis, the word leaves something to be desired. But it is nevertheless the impression I took away back in June 2003 when Bolton went to Cernobbio, Italy, to talk to the Council for the United States and Italy. Afterward he took questions. Some of them were about weapons of mass destruction, which, you may remember, the Bush administration had claimed would be found in abundance in Iraq but which by then had not materialized.

The literal facts did not in the least give Bolton pause. Weapons of mass destruction would be found, he insisted. Where? When? How come they had not yet been discovered? The questions were insistent, but they were coming, please remember, from Italians, whose government was one of the few in the world to actively support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Bolton bristled. I have never seen such a performance by an American diplomat. He was dismissive. He was angry. He clearly thought the questioners had no right, no standing, no justification and no earthly reason to question the United States of America. The Bush administration had said that Iraq was lousy with WMD and Iraq therefore was lousy with WMD. Just you wait.

This kind of ferocious certainty is commendable in pit bulls and other fighting animals, but it is something of a problem in a diplomat. We now have been told, though, that Bolton's Italian aria was not unique and that the anger I sensed in the man has been felt by others. (I went over to speak to him afterward, but he was such a mass of scowling anger that I beat a retreat.) Others have testified to how he berated subordinates and how, to quote Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), he "needs anger management." From what I saw, a bucket of cold water should always be kept at hand.

The rap against Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador is that he has maximum contempt for that organization. He once went so far as to flatly declare that "there is no United Nations," just an international community that occasionally "can be led by the only real power left in the world -- and that's the United States." He has expressed these sorts of feelings numerous times over the years -- so much so that it is not clear whether he has been rewarded with this appointment or punished with it. "

Microsoft and Gay Rights
 

Easy. Remember merely using the internet is reason to suspect a Judge, surely the rest of us don't need it.

Microsoft and Gay Rights
 

Ameriblog had something about that yesterday.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

Powell has made it pretty clear, to those reading between the lines, that he is lobbying against Bolton.

Mona Charen can blame the Bolton thing on "liberals," but if that was the source of opposition to him, he would have been confirmed already. Bolton's problem is that he is a bull in a china shop. Condi Rice doesn't like him, and successfully prevented having him installed as her No. 2. Bolton is Cheney's man. The fight over his nomination is now a fight between moderate Republicans like Powell and the Cheney types.


eta:

I'm trying to figure out where I read the Powell thing -- it may have been Steve Clemons' blog, which has been all over the Bolton thing for a long time.

eata:

A-ha. It was Josh, describing articles in the NYT and WaPo.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

I think Powell is horrified by Bush's philosophies and feelings re: the UN, and recognizes that Bolton and Bush are very much alike in that regard. Plus, Powell and Bolton regularly clashed - loudly, I guess - in the past on State matters. I don't think they like each other at all. Finally, Powell has apparently been quietly working the Senate to kill off Bolton.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

See, our difference is very basic here. You would read that sentence as a slam on Bolton. I read it as a sign of his qualification. Not much use debating his characteristics if we haven't even settled on the requirements yet, i suppose.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

I agree, our difference is very basic. I agree with you that Bolton rather blunt style is reflective of what the Administration wants here.

You think it's a good thing based on the theory that it'll give the UN the shakeup that it needs. I agree with you that the UN needs reform, but think that Bolton's affection for grenade-throwing is, to put it mildly, something of a minus for diplomats. I therefore have reconciled myself to this nomination, and plan to watch with some amusement weekly snippets to be played on Hannity and Colmes of, say, Bolton setting fire to the German Ambassador's office door.

Bolton
 

Since I don't think bilmore is going to be particularly convinced by Gatti's use of Richard Cohen, maybe David Ignatius -- not exactly a liberal -- will help:

• Bolton's Biggest Problem
  
  By David Ignatius
  Friday, April 22, 2005; Page A17
  
  "My conscience got me," Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich said this week in explaining why he wanted to delay a vote on the Bush administration's nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton. That's a sentence you don't hear often in Washington, and it suggests that there's more going on with the Bolton nomination than a mere partisan squabble.
  
  The problem with Bolton, in fact , is that he epitomizes the politicization of intelligence that helped produce the fiasco over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration has so far managed to evade any real accounting for its role in the Iraqi WMD blunder, letting the intelligence community take the hit. But the Bolton saga is a microcosm of that larger failure: It's the story of a policymaker who tried to pressure intelligence analysts into supporting WMD views that turned out to be wrong.
  
  I've read hundreds of pages of testimony gathered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in its review of the Bolton nomination. It's a fascinating account -- not simply in its documentation of how Bolton tried to intimidate the analysts when he was undersecretary of state but in showing how the analysts refused to buckle under pressure. In that sense, it's a lesson in how to improve the performance of the intelligence community.
  
  The most damaging allegation about Bolton involves his 2002 efforts to prod the intelligence community to back his allegation that Cuba might be seeking to export weapons of mass destruction from a biowarfare program. In February 2002, he prepared a speech that, according to an unclassified Senate intelligence committee report, "contained a sentence which said that the U.S. believes Cuba has a developmental, offensive biological warfare program and is providing assistance to other rogue state programs."
  
  The problem was that Bolton's charges went well beyond what the intelligence community viewed as solid evidence. The agencies' cautious judgment, expressed in a 1999 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was still classified in 2002, was that Cuba had a "limited, developmental, offensive biological warfare research and development effort."
  
  Bolton wanted to sound the alarm about Cuba, regardless of what the NIE said. So he asked his chief of staff to submit his proposed language to the intelligence community for clearance. The request went to the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), where it was given to the chief biological weapons analyst, Christian Westermann. And there the battle was joined.
  
  To appreciate the story, it's important to see Bolton and Westermann as Washington archetypes. Bolton is a political appointee who has made his career delivering broadsides at think tanks. Westermann, by contrast, is a career man. He served 20 years in the Navy, including combat time, before joining INR as a weapons analyst. He took his job as an intelligence gatekeeper seriously.
  
  Westermann sent Bolton's proposed speech language about Cuban biowarfare efforts to the intelligence community for clearance the afternoon of Feb. 12, 2002. With it, he attached alternative language that in his view accorded better with the NIE. Westermann had frequently suggested similar changes for other colleagues and saw it as part of his job. But Bolton seemed convinced that it was a stab in the back. His chief of staff fired off an e-mail complaining about the alternative language and summoning the analyst to Bolton's office immediately. Westermann e-mailed back meekly that he had provided the same language a few months before for Secretary of State Colin Powell.
  
  Bolton was enraged when Westermann arrived: "He wanted to know what right I had trying to change an undersecretary's language. . . . And he got very red in the face and shaking his finger at me and explained that I was acting way beyond my position. . . . And so, he basically threw me out of his office and told me to get Tom Fingar up there," Westermann testified.
  
  Fingar at the time was acting head of INR and now has the job full-time. He testified that when he arrived, Bolton was still furious, saying that "he wasn't going to be told what he could say by a midlevel INR munchkin analyst," and "that he wanted Westermann taken off his accounts." To their immense credit, Fingar and his boss, INR chief Carl Ford, refused to cave to continuing pressure from Bolton to transfer Westermann. He's still on the job.
  
  And what about the Cuban biological weapons program that had Bolton so exercised? In 2004 the intelligence community revised its 1999 estimate because it was even less sure that Cuba had any such effort to develop offensive weapons of mass destruction. In other words, the mercurial, finger-wagging policymaker appears to have had it wrong, and the cautious analyst who refused to be intimidated had it right.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/mc20050422.shtml
 

There's a difference between Bolton and Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- both of whom who were intended by the presidents who appointed them (Nixon and Reagan) to do a little eye-poking at the UN. Bolton is an intended eye-poker who (based upon sworn testimony) seems to have some real issues with judgment and interpersonal relationships.

And the truth, perhaps.

Mona Charen v. Ann Coulter
 

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/m...20050422.shtml

Mona Charen is one of my favorite conservative authors. Her book Useful Idiots was pretty good. It is interesting to contrast it with Treason by Ann Coulter. They both pretty much address the same subject. Where Mona's book is very straightforward, and gives credit where credit is due, Ann Coulter takes the position that Conservatives are absolutely right all the time and Democrats are always wrong. She edits quotes to reverse their meaning and leaves misleading footnotes to support her positions. In Coulter's book she paints McCarthy as a saint that was struggling for a good cause, who always did the right thing for the right reasons, and was wrongfully and evily brought down by the liberals. Mona ,on the other hands points out that there are a lot of Myths about McCarthy that everyone assumes that are true because they have been repeated so much, but she also points out some of McCarthy's flaws. Ann Coulter is just a screeching banshee, but Mona Charen is actually a responsible writer. But of course, Ann Coulter's books sell much better.

Mona Charen v. Ann Coulter
 

Charen = analysis

Coulter = entertainment

No one should ever confuse the two.

Mona Charen v. Ann Coulter
 

The problem is that many conservatives do.

Mona Charen v. Ann Coulter
 

Real conservatives wouldn't read a woman's writing.

Mona Charen v. Ann Coulter
 

No way. Michael Moore told me conservatives can't read. And he uses footnotes, so I know he's always accurate.

Mona Charen v. Ann Coulter
 

Mona Charen = Analysis

Ann Coulter = entertaiment

Michael Moore = pulp fiction

Taiwan
 

If China invaded Taiwan, who thinks that the US would respond militarily?

Taiwan
 

Fuck em. We carpet bomb a few cities, and they'll surrender.

Taiwan
 

Why did everyone ignore my French post on this yeasterday? It seems nuts that France would give China an apparent green light.

Taiwan
 

And your point would be . . . ?

Taiwan
 

Me.