The victory of petty politics over national interest
There's no other way to put it. Today's news that Ambassador John Bolton, the best representative to the United Nations the US has had since the days of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jean Kirkpatrick, tendered his resignation when it became clear that Senate Democrats would use their new majority in alliance with some addlepated Republicans to block his nomination:
Lacking the votes to keep his job, embattled U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Monday he would resign, a defeat for a chagrined President Bush who had clung to hopes of Senate confirmation.
Bolton got the position in August 2005, appointed by Bush when Congress was in recess. With that temporary assignment about to expire, and his long fight for confirmation going nowhere, Bolton made it official.
He handed in a resignation letter that did not mention the political fight behind it. It said simply: "I have concluded that my service in your administration should end when the current recess appointment expires."
"I accepted. I'm not happy about it," Bush said Monday afternoon in the Oval Office, with Bolton at his side. Bush did not name a replacement, and officials offered no timetable for an announcement.
The setback for the White House seemed to put a hold on the postelection talk of bipartisanship.
Bush considered Bolton a strong voice as the U.N. dealt with crises in Iraq, Lebanon, North Korea and other complex matters around the world. Bolton also pushed the administration's effort to reform the United Nations.
But Democrats opposed Bolton, whom they viewed as a brusque, ill-suited diplomat. Some Republicans helped scuttle his nomination, including moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.
The president had stinging words for them.
"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," Bush said in a statement. "This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country."
Bush was being nice. This is a disgrace, treating a valuable, dedicated public servant as a political shuttlecock. And this is only the latest. The Democrats (and Senator Voinovich (R - Ohio)) treated Bolton shabbily during his hearings, fishing for anything they could get -- and coming up with nothing. That didn't stop the hysteria and slanders, however, culminating in Voinovich's bizarre weeping in the Senate during Bolton's confirmation hearings.
This should never happen, whether the nominee is Republican or Democrat -- or of almost any party. The president should receive the benefit of the doubt for his nominees, a principle so important that James Madison wanted to make a two-thirds majority necessary to block a nominee. It particularly shameful in time of war when we need our best people more than ever serving the United States. What kind of message does this send to qualified men and women, that their dedication to public service could be trampled under Harry Reid's vindictiveness, John Kerry's fetish for European approval, or Ted Kennedy's alcohol-inspired incoherent rants? And what message does it send to the UN, which has been exposed as a cesspit of corruption and often an active abetter of tyranny, that the ambassador whose main mission was to push for reform of the UN does not enjoy the confidence of Congress? That those who oppose Bolton's confirmation talk in coded phrases that mean they want to continue things just as they are?
The Democrats had the chance to show that they could rise above the petty ankle-biting of the recent past and honor bipartisanship in foreign policy by voting to confirm a fine public servant as UN Ambassador. Instead, they blew it, and their shriveled sense of decency has cost the nation dearly.
LINKS: More on Bolton's resignation at Atlas Shrugs, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, The Captain's Quarters (who reports also that Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has resigned. Lord help us.), Power Line, and Eye On The UN, which has a good list of Bolton's many accomplishments in his short time at Turtle Bay. (In case the previous link requires a password, you can also find the article here.)
Excuse me while I go pour myself a stiff martini.
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