Bolton's ordeal confirms low appeal of high office

The Charleston Post and Courier ^ | 04/24/05 | Frank Wooten

[smoothsailing]

SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 2005 12:00 AM

Bolton's ordeal confirms low appeal of high office

BY FRANK WOOTEN

WANTED: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bullies need not apply.

OK, so that stipulation isn't in the job description -- yet.

But it should be added to future postings if John Bolton, President Bush's nominee, is rejected on the grounds that he berated subordinates, harangued a public-relations specialist and is a browbeating jerk.

WANTED: A rational reason for anybody with flaws -- in another word, anybody -- to withstand the agonizing scrutiny now required for high office, elective or appointive.

Yes, Bolton, currently undersecretary of state for arms control, sounds like at least a bit of a bully. Don't we need at least a bit of a bully at the U.N.?

Don't we live, as humans always have, in a dangerous world where nations, united and otherwise, must choose to be either a) intimidators, or b) intimidated?

Might might not make right, but it makes a decisive difference in the huge-stakes global game of Realpolitik.

Another vital difference: The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reported that when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee convened on April 11, "most Republicans skipped the hearing, leaving Democrats largely unchallenged as they assailed Bolton's knack for making enemies and disparaging the very organization he would serve." Hey, if Bolton's confirmed, "the very organization he would serve" should be the United States, not the United Nations.

And even if you think America would be better served by a touchy-feely mouthpiece at the U.N., would you be well served by a hiring process that grants mass audiences to any and all who don't like you the next time you're up for a promotion?

Melody Townsel, now a P.R. consultant in Dallas(and Bush Basher), sent an "open letter" to the committee charging that Bolton was abusive to her in 1994, when she worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Moscow and he was a private attorney for a contractor. She wrote that after she criticized his client, he harassed her, falsely claimed she misused funds and "proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel, throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door, and genuinely behaving like a madman. I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton then routinely visited me to pound on the door and shout threats."

Sure, he shouldn't have done that -- if he did do that. Sure, former State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford also blasted Bolton on April 12 when he told the committee the undersecretary was unduly harsh to a low-level staffer, and that "the personal hurt that he causes is not worth the price that had to be paid." Ford called Bolton "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down kind of guy."

Even former Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to The Washington Post, has concerns about Bolton's short fuse.

Gee, nobody's perfect.

How about you? Did you lose your cool in a Moscow hotel 11 years ago?

Or was it a Summerville parking lot seven years ago? Did you ever give underlings -- or overlings -- a harder time than they deserved?

Have you ever had a few too many or worn a Superman suit?

The answers to that last question were yes and yes for former Texas Sen. John Tower. That "evidence" helped thwart the first President Bush's attempt to make Tower his secretary of defense in 1989, two years before he died in a plane crash.

What precludes lofty office lies in the beholder's eye. Many who found mere allegations of Clarence Thomas talking dirty to Anita Hill sufficient to keep him off the Supreme Court didn't find sordid proof of President Clinton going far beyond talk with an intern in the Oval Office, and lies about it under oath that earned disbarment, sufficient to throw him out of the White House.

But the most familiar disqualifier for exalted federal positions lately hasn't been impersonating a superhero, drinking to excess, talking dirty or acting dirty. It's been failure to pay Social Security taxes on personal employees. The list of Cabinet wannabes derailed by that blunder includes Zoe Baird (attorney general designate under Clinton), Linda Chavez (labor secretary designate under the current Bush) and Bernard Kerik (Homeland Security director designate under the current Bush). Fair enough. Those at government's top levels should follow the rules.

Then again, when you're seeking top people, you're often seeking rich people with hired help, which is hard to find.

Talented people willing to work in government are increasingly hard to find, too. Overzealous background checks can even besmirch the reputations of esteemed newspaper columnists, if isolated incidents in their past are unfairly taken out of life-totality context. Thus, many insightful journalists, knowing this gotcha game all too well, eschew public office to the inevitable detriment of the nation.

So before believing Bolton's too mean for this job, keep in mind what this job means.

Keep in mind, too, that being too picky about those who want to serve the common good drains the government talent pool.  

 

[Prost1]

After listening to Joe Biden go on and on, I think that maybe it was a mistake for George Washington to cross the Delaware....

(Biden represents Delaware....)

[SE Mom]

No kidding. I'm under the impression the human race has so far produced one perfect being.

Excellent piece.

[nothingnew]

...when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee convened on April 11, "most Republicans skipped the hearing, leaving Democrats largely unchallenged as they assailed Bolton's knack for making enemies and disparaging the very organization he would serve."

Anybody else tired of repubs who's testicles are in a lockbox? Feh!

FMCDH(BITS)

[Mind-numbed Robot]

There were two or three Republicans there, George Allen for one, and Richard Luger, the committee chairman, and they kept things in perspective. There weren't that many Democrats there either but they consumed all the air in the room.

This author has the right slant but there are plenty of available facts he didn't seem to care to look up, which would have made it an even better article.