Flight Pundit

So how are things going for John Bolton?? And the UN?? Just read this and laugh.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton’s mission to reform the UN is a lot like Hercules’ mythical labor to clean a mountain of manure from the Augean Stables, joked a friend while introducing him before a recent speech. The difference for Bolton, she said, is that the animals making the mess are still there.

Recounting the story, Bolton leans his head back and laughs. “She said it,” he said. “I didn’t.”

After four months as ambassador, Bolton is still shoveling hard. Most of his fellow diplomats agree that the blunt envoy is unconventional. Some call him “a bully,” and others say he is “brilliant.” But opinion is divided about whether he is cleaning up the mess or adding to it.

“He is having a definite impact,” said Ambassador Mihnea Motoc of Romania, a temporary member of the Security Council. “Others wish they could do things the same way.”

The UN needs a bully. A brilliant one at that.

But Bolton’s methods have often put him at odds with traditional U.S. allies here, particularly Britain, which has worked to broker face-saving compromises. “Strategically, there isn’t that much of a difference between the U.S. and the U.K.,” British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. “The question is one of tactics.”

Tactics? I suppose. The Brits are far more elegant and kiss classy, who beat around the bush a lot. Bolton is a straight shooter who speaks the truth, with a bluntness the UN has never seen before.

Just as member states were brushing themselves off from the last collision Bolton precipitated - over an agreement on how to reform the UN before the World Summit in September - the U.S. ambassador is setting up a new showdown.

He has threatened to block the world body’s budget for 2006-07 unless diplomats commit to “real reform” by the end of 2005, a year that has seen the organization severely damaged by revelations of corruption and mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program, the disclosure of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and the UN’s inability to change itself.

It hasn’t happened-this reform. Kofi Annan (cough, choke, spit) is still around and therefore so is all the corruption and lies. I say, BLOCK the damn budget. Don’t give them a red penny until real change happens.

The budget battle prompted Secretary-General Kofi Annan to cancel a trip this month to Asia, and warn that Bolton’s gambit could exacerbate the problems it is meant to solve.

“He has an agenda, and he’s pursuing it with a conviction that is uncommon here,” said Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali, who sometimes clashes with Bolton in the Security Council but considers him a friend. “He’s doing it his way, which is not the way we do it at the UN. We are used to a little more compromise.”

It’s about time someone “exacerbrated” the problems at the UN. These issues need to be exposed and fixed. Not just whispered about and swept under the marble flooring of Turtle Bay.

Bolton stands out among sleekly groomed diplomats, with his trademark walrus mustache and mop of gray hair.

Heh, he’s not interested in appearances so much as he is with action. I like that. Anyone who can put aside petty concerns about how they look, and get down to the more important things in life, is worthy of my respect.

Cross Posted @ ARS

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I have to thank Michael for introducing me to the one and only, feather fondling fruitcake of an excuse for a college professor- Ward Churchill- almost a year ago. I remember reading this and getting myself all twisted up in my own undergarment (s). Churchill is still around, still causing trouble and mouthing off and making vague threats. Throughout the year we have both written about this phoney, full of bulloney, attention seeking anti American Indian want-ta-be…I found an article today that sums the year up pretty well.

Some celebrities are recognized by only one name. Cher. Madonna. Bono. LeBron.

In 2005, a CU-Boulder professor entered that territory.

Churchill.

Ethnic studies professor and Native American scholar Ward Churchill dominated talk on campus after publicity surfaced last January about an essay he wrote shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” a Web essay Churchill wrote immediately following the 9/11 attacks, ignited nationwide furor for comparing some World Trade Center victims to “little Eichmanns,” referring to World War II Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann.

He also called the Trade Center and Pentagon attackers “gallant” and described them as a “combat team.” He wrote that those who died were not innocent victims, but rather willing perpetuators of the “mighty engine of profit.”

At a speech in February at CU, Churchill said he regretted how he phrased some of his argument, but that he wouldn’t back down from his views.

“What you’re putting out will blow back on you and that’s what happened,” he said, referring to the 9/11 attacks, adding rhetorically: “Why do they hate us?’ Why shouldn’t they?”

Churchill resigned as chair of CU’s ethnic studies department in January as controversy intensified.

Read the rest. This man is something else; he has made a celebrity out of himself and it fits him well. He almost has a Hollywood aura about him, with all the groupies and body guards he has around him. Too bad he’s ruined the reputation of a good college; too bad he has spoiled many an excellent high school students desire to attend that college…too bad he just doesn’t go crawl into a tee pee and suck a feather or something. Oh wait…THAT’S right…he isn’t a real Indian so he would never be seen in such primal living quarters now would he??

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