Eutrusca
01-05-2005, 17:41
The UN is almost universally viewed as a paper tiger. There are very few areas where it is effective, UNESCO being one of those few. Not only is it ineffective, it's also been shown to be rather corrupt. An organization such as this needs someone to hold it to account ... to shake things up a bit. John Bolton fills this bill nicely.
The New York Times today carries an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/politics/01bolton.html?th&emc=th) on Bolton which I highly recommend.
A few exerpts:
WASHINGTON, April 30 - In the tumultuous days before John R. Bolton graduated from Yale University in 1970, he and his roommates leaned mattresses against the windows to keep out stray tear gas shells.
The trial of a top Black Panther in New Haven had ignited riots and set off a national uproar. The National Guard patrolled the campus in tanks. A bomb went off at the hockey rink.
At commencement, student speakers compared the United States to pre-Nazi Germany and called for an immediate end to the war in Vietnam.
But one student sounded a contrarian theme.
"The conservative underground is alive and well here," Mr. Bolton told his classmates and their parents, scorning a handful of hecklers. "If we do not make our influence felt, rest assured we will in the real world."
*****
[ Bolton ] wins ... plaudits [ from his supervisors ] partly because of an extreme work style that sometimes has him firing off e-mail messages to subordinates from home at 4 a.m. before arriving at the office at 6. In his current job, he has required staff members to stand - along with him - at morning meetings, to discourage long-winded discussions.
*****
"He's tough and he's relentless and he's very logical," said Frank J. Donatelli, a Republican consultant who has worked with Mr. Bolton both in government and party operations. "But I've never observed any kind of abusive behavior."
*****
Raised in a working-class row house neighborhood in southwest Baltimore called Yale Heights - a far cry from the university where he would earn undergraduate and law degrees - Mr. Bolton won a scholarship to McDonogh, then an all-male military school.
That modest background is a key to his personality, some associates say. "He didn't come from money," said Mr. Boyd, his former subordinate. "Sometimes when you push the rock up the hill, you're hungrier. You have more of a drive to succeed."
*****
Ed Wroe, another McDonogh scholarship student, recalls John Bolton's fervor for the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater. "When you hear people describe him as abrasive, you think, 'That sounds like John Bolton,' " said Mr. Wroe, an attorney in Idaho. "He didn't worry about what people thought of him."
But Dr. Bruce K. Krueger, his Yale roommate for five years and now a physiologist at the University of Maryland medical school, recalls Mr. Bolton as a far more pleasant character. "He might say something provocative - everyone else in the room might disagree with it - but he'd have something solid and well-reasoned to back it up."
*****
In the loose shorthand of the news media, Mr. Bolton has sometimes been described as a neoconservative. That's wrong, said Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century, a conservative strategy group.
The neoconservatives believe in spreading democracy; Mr. Bolton, with a less idealistic view of other countries' potential, prefers to focus on threats to the United States, Mr. Schmitt said. "He's a straightforward, traditional, national security conservative," he said.
*****
In a recent interview with the McDonogh School magazine headlined "The Patriot," Mr. Bolton, who is not talking to reporters during the confirmation period, defined his job as keeping American interests clearly in sight.
"Frequently you hear diplomacy described as a skill of keeping things calm and stable and so on, and there's an element of that," he said. "But basically, American diplomats should be advocates of the United States. That's the style I pursue."
The New York Times today carries an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/politics/01bolton.html?th&emc=th) on Bolton which I highly recommend.
A few exerpts:
WASHINGTON, April 30 - In the tumultuous days before John R. Bolton graduated from Yale University in 1970, he and his roommates leaned mattresses against the windows to keep out stray tear gas shells.
The trial of a top Black Panther in New Haven had ignited riots and set off a national uproar. The National Guard patrolled the campus in tanks. A bomb went off at the hockey rink.
At commencement, student speakers compared the United States to pre-Nazi Germany and called for an immediate end to the war in Vietnam.
But one student sounded a contrarian theme.
"The conservative underground is alive and well here," Mr. Bolton told his classmates and their parents, scorning a handful of hecklers. "If we do not make our influence felt, rest assured we will in the real world."
*****
[ Bolton ] wins ... plaudits [ from his supervisors ] partly because of an extreme work style that sometimes has him firing off e-mail messages to subordinates from home at 4 a.m. before arriving at the office at 6. In his current job, he has required staff members to stand - along with him - at morning meetings, to discourage long-winded discussions.
*****
"He's tough and he's relentless and he's very logical," said Frank J. Donatelli, a Republican consultant who has worked with Mr. Bolton both in government and party operations. "But I've never observed any kind of abusive behavior."
*****
Raised in a working-class row house neighborhood in southwest Baltimore called Yale Heights - a far cry from the university where he would earn undergraduate and law degrees - Mr. Bolton won a scholarship to McDonogh, then an all-male military school.
That modest background is a key to his personality, some associates say. "He didn't come from money," said Mr. Boyd, his former subordinate. "Sometimes when you push the rock up the hill, you're hungrier. You have more of a drive to succeed."
*****
Ed Wroe, another McDonogh scholarship student, recalls John Bolton's fervor for the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater. "When you hear people describe him as abrasive, you think, 'That sounds like John Bolton,' " said Mr. Wroe, an attorney in Idaho. "He didn't worry about what people thought of him."
But Dr. Bruce K. Krueger, his Yale roommate for five years and now a physiologist at the University of Maryland medical school, recalls Mr. Bolton as a far more pleasant character. "He might say something provocative - everyone else in the room might disagree with it - but he'd have something solid and well-reasoned to back it up."
*****
In the loose shorthand of the news media, Mr. Bolton has sometimes been described as a neoconservative. That's wrong, said Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century, a conservative strategy group.
The neoconservatives believe in spreading democracy; Mr. Bolton, with a less idealistic view of other countries' potential, prefers to focus on threats to the United States, Mr. Schmitt said. "He's a straightforward, traditional, national security conservative," he said.
*****
In a recent interview with the McDonogh School magazine headlined "The Patriot," Mr. Bolton, who is not talking to reporters during the confirmation period, defined his job as keeping American interests clearly in sight.
"Frequently you hear diplomacy described as a skill of keeping things calm and stable and so on, and there's an element of that," he said. "But basically, American diplomats should be advocates of the United States. That's the style I pursue."