Contact
Lifestream
Bush uses loophole to install Bolton to UN post
August 1st, 2005 at 18:53 Björn Hallberg
U.S. President George Bush appointed John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, without waiting for Senate approval.“This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about UN reform,” Bush said.
Bush appointed Bolton to the UN post using a loophole that allows him to make such appointments while Congress is on recess. Under the “recess appointment” Bolton will serve until January 2007, when a new Congress is sworn in.
Bush also tries to make it seem like this cloak and dagger appointment is nothing out of the ordinary, and insists that it was due to “partisan delaying tactics by a handful of senators.” Since when did a majority become a handful? If it had not been for Republican senators sharing the sceptiscism of their Democratic colleagues, the appointment would have been a non-issue for the regime.
The only bright side to this appointment is that Bolton will most likely continue with his hardline argument, once again show the UN what an American fundamentalist he is and make a fool of himself, effectively steering even moderate critics and friends of the US towards my way of looking at things.
About the reform Bolton intends for the UN, I’d sum it up by saying that it revolves around making the UN irrelevant. Or as Bolton was quoted saying in 1994:
There’s no such thing as the United Nations.
Also adding that the US is the only power in the world. Like something out of the Bolshevik revolution. In the words of Hannah Arendt.
What destroys the element of pride in the totalitarian contempt for reality (and thereby distinguishes it radically from revolutionary theories and attitudes) is the supersense which gives the contempt for reality its cogency, logicality, and consistency. What makes a truly totalitarian device out of the Bolshevik claim that the present Russian system is superior to all others is the fact that the totalitarian ruler draws from this claim the logically impeccable conclusion that without this system people never could have built such a wonderful thing as, let us say, a subway; from this, he again draws the logical conclusion that anyone who knows of the existence of the Paris subway is a suspect because he may cause people to doubt that one can do things only in the Bolshevik way. This leads to the final conclusion that in order to remain a loyal Bolshevik, you have to destroy the Paris subway. Nothing matters but consistency.
The aggressiveness of totalitarianism springs not from lust for power, and if it feverishly seeks to expand, it does so neither for expansions sake nor for profit, but only for ideological reasons: to make the world consistent, to prove that its respective supersense has been right.
Entry 192 filed under: North America, UN. This entry was posted 3 years, 5 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.
The US Constitution gives President Bush the RIGHT to make the appointment. Hardly a loophole.
Hardly the point. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Also, in my book a loophole is an “ambiguity (especially one in the text of a law or contract) that makes it possible to evade a difficulty or obligation.” So while sweeping, it does apply. There are at least two ways to appoint Bolton, one is easier, Bush chose the easy approach. That is a loophole. Also, your next logical point is what? That the fact that Bush used this “loophole” is just a coincidence?
Go tell Reuters and others who started using the term loophole if you want. Anyway, loophole is really too kind a word to describe current events. Dyslogisms for loophole?
Another rotten decision from a rotten president in a long line of rotten presidents in a rotten country with a high and mighty but ultimately rotten constitution. Yeah, that is about right.