Notlob

Unfit to Serve

This Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings on the nomination of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. Bolton was nominated to the post last year by President Bush but failed to win Senate confirmation after a series of problematic disclosures about his past, particularly a record of mishandling intelligence and a pattern of intimidating subordinates.

The timing of this week's hearings is no accident. The White House is attempting to rally support for the Bolton nomination by politicizing the escalating conflict in the Middle East, arguing that this moment of geopolitical peril requires a permanent representative at the U.N. But the truth is that Bolton's record over the past year has highlighted the desire of an individual who was sent to the U.N. not to make it stronger, but to undermine it. Bolton is no more worthy for the U.N. post now than he was a year ago.

Bolton’s Bubble: U.N. Ambassador Skips All Security Council Foreign Travel

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 18, 2005, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton argued that diplomacy has to happen outside of the New York “bubble”

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According to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), there have been four UNSC trips since Bolton was recess appointed as ambassador in Aug. 2005 — to Central Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Chad and Sudan, and to the Congo. He did not attend any of them.

In early June, Bolton passed up the delegation trip to Sudan because he had a “full platter here.” In reality, Bolton was giving a lecture at the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank in London.