Lynne Cheney, the Vice President’s wife, has spoken incessantly about the need to provide good moral examples for children and teens in America.
But now her husband and others are arguing that Bolton-style bullying “is just what the U.N. needs.”
I can see the ads being developed now.
Picture a big, burly kid, hand in a fist (or menacingly pointing as Christian Westermann mentioned in his interview commentary), and a young dark-skinned child — perhaps from Iraq or India or Indonesia — cowering on the ground afraid of the bully.
Around them are youths from South Korea, Germany, Sweden, Ghana, Malaysia, Portugal, Mexico, Brazil, China, and Israel. Their eyes are wide open and fixed on the fist of the bully — scared.
And the caption has the bully saying “I want to grow up and be just like John Bolton.”
Bolton is not someone who can be a credible champion for U.N. reform. He can’t seduce other nations to go the extra mile to make real reform happen, and he doesn’t have the credibility at this point to come back and sell to Americans or the Congress anything he might have achieved.
We need someone who has impeccable credentials, for whom Americans can feel proud, and who has a good sense of American interests, diplomacy, and the fragile state of affairs in the U.S. foreign policy portfolio right now.
President Bush — withdraw Bolton, and suggest someone who will inspire children to be better than the example John Bolton would set.
— Steve Clemons
