NYT has a
piece on Bolton's renomination to the UN, and uses the bit of "news" that Voinovich has changed his position on supporting Bolton's nomination as a jumping off point to detail what a complete prick Bolton has been at the UN to date, alienating allies and opponents alike.
That he has done so is not very suprising, since it was generally expected that he would be a prick - many thought that's why he was nominated, afterall.
But one anecdote and quote provided in the article rang a bell of remembrance for me...
Mr. Bolton that day burst into a packed committee hall, produced a cordless microphone and began to lecture envoys from developing nations about their weakening of a proposal to tighten management of the United Nations, his chief goal. {snip}
[Bolton] said he did not believe his manner was confrontational. "It's not a question of personal style so much as it is a way of articulating a position that puts American interests in the best light," he said. "And I think in some cases people are unfamiliar with that, but I don't think that's confrontational. I think that's a matter of clarity."
In particular, he said, in the June episode, he had been simply trying to provoke honest debate.
"I said to myself, maybe there's a way to do something a little unusual here," he said. "I know it didn't work, but I think that's part of what we have to do to shake things up here, to try to do something a little different, a little creative, to try to talk back and forth and engage in a colloquy as if we were on the floor of a parliament."
(emphasis mine)
Golly, I says to myself... where have I heard that kind of arrogance before?
The 2 p.m. rally was organized by Clemson student Andrew R. Davis, who is the editor-in-chief of The Tiger Town Observer, a monthly student publication that advertises itself as "Clemson's conservative journal of news and opinion," according to Mr. Davis.
{snip}
A small group of supporters, who did not know the rally was a ruse orchestrated by the self-described political journalist gathered on the field for the rally.
{snip}
He (the little wingnut -ed)said he had no regrets for organizing the rally that was meant to "mock the liberal position" against war and rouse the campus from apathy.
"The main goal was to get the campus active again," Mr. Davis said. "When you have apathy on campus, it's boring, it's not fun. There's no discourse. There's nothing, people don't care."
At the time, I chalked up this jerk's actions as a pathetic prank from some dumb college republican looking for attention, but I see now that he was just trying out his diplomacy training wheels.
Keep his name in mind, you will no doubt hear it again when he is nominated to the UN during the second Not-Jenna administration in 2034.