I wonder what Sen. Lugar is thinking now that this pitbull has been unleashed. Senator: I have regarded you as a decent man in the past, but you share the guilt for appeasing the White House and letting this happen.

Steve, am I reading that wrong or did John Bolton actually try to UNDERMINE women's rights on page 2, point 12?

Below is the quote. No idea why Bolton thought it was necessary to remove "in particular women and children" from it. I don't think it is as bad as it sounds because it does still say all but it is wierd that he would remove it.

"We affirm gender equality and promotion and protection of the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedons for all, in particular women and children, are essential to advance development, peace, and security."

I'm just shocked by this. Just shocked.

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Nice post over there Steve.

I like this part most:

....strikes the section that states that countries will use force only as last resort

You would think that after Iraq our culture has learned, yet again, that war should be the absolute LAST-LAST-LAST resort to the solution of any sort of conflict.

But not these Bolton primitives...

They continue to see WAR as a legit solution to any old conflict.

Here is what I say to them:

Come on dummies....
Look at your Iraq mess.
Swim in it.
Feel it.
Breathe it deep.

And then tell me:

What has your Iraq war gained for America?

Name one thing.

I think:

All it has done is make more enemies for America.
All it has done is deplete our treasury.

So here I sit...the author of Koreyel's Law... waiting--

Tell me, Show me, Educate me:
Explicate for me one good thing that the Iraq War has given America as a whole.

I am waiting.

No doubt...
I will probably be waiting...
until the chickenhawks come home.

Please tell me that the universal response at the UN to Bolton's efforts at "reform" is out-loud side-splitting laughter.

Steve, your TPM post ends with this question:

"Condi -- When does the "supervision" promised to Senators Voinovich, Hagel, and Chafee begin?"

Why do you assume that Bolton is not right in line with what his masters want? From the beginning of the 'Bolton Saga,' you have addressed the issue as though, if the President, et al., only knew how bad Bolton is, they'd drop him. It seems pretty obvious that they KNOW what to expect from Bolton and WANT him to be an asshole at the UN. Now you seem to think that Bolton is acting outside his brief. Seems to me that it's more logical to assume that this IS his brief. He is there to jam a stick in the spokes whenever possible, to undermine the UN until it is COMPLETELY irrelevant. You did yoeman's work trying to stop Bolton, but, by now, the quixotic nature of your crusade should be clear. Bolton is their guy and I'll be shocked if anything he does draws Condi's ire.

BTW: I was with you all the way on stopping Bolton on principle. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like 'principle' matters much anymore. It always seemed to me that, if we'd been able to stop Bolton, we'd probably have gotten bad or worse. Having Powell at State didn't stop the current mess since Bush was willing to have Powell lied to, manipulated, and isolated -- why would he do any different to any 'moderate' UN Ambassador?

I think overall, the Bolton Saga ended pretty well in terms of the politics. There was no way to completely stop him, so forcing a recess appt. was as good as it gets. I do think we need to make sure that the History of this recess appt includes the fact that Bush was stymied by his own party, since cloture should have been a pretty low threshold given the lily-livered nature of many Senate Dems. Without Voinovich and other more timid reticent Rs, I bet the Dems would have folded -- all they'd need is, what?, 5 or 6 Ds to invoke cloture (on a party-line vote) and then Bolton would be a shoo-in. Should have been easy -- if Bolton weren't such a slug.

Now, I hope to hear every prominent Dem with a reason to, commenting on Bolton's first 'reveal.' They need to be loud and pointed about the fact that this kind of nonsense is what Ds warned about and Ds need to make noise every time Bolton sticks his nose up. Since we have no choice but to ride the tiger, we need to remind the American people regularly about what the tiger's doing. I hope you will counsel them to raise their voices.

I saw that Chuck above took Steve's closing line about "slipping out of his leash" and ran with it a bit. I was thinking rabid dog myself after reading the posting at TPM before I stopped in over here. What the hell is wrong with that guy?

I agree with mbowdoin. I think Bolton's doing just what they want him to. He wants "particularly women and children" out because they don't want to be called on the fact that women and children are going to lose legal status in Iraq. Taking out "force as a last resort" is obvious. He's going through the thing and taking out anything that has the remotest chance of putting anything the Bush administration does in a bad light.

Bolton is like the many infamous "pit bull" secretaries to Great Men at places like Harvard. They convey all the bad news and hostility to the Great Man's visitors, colleagues, students, the press, so the Great Man can be charming, smile, and shrug his shoulders helplessly at the incivility and mute any blame coming his way. But the secretaries are doing exactly, precisely what the Great Man wants them to do.

Those little "Deleted" boxes in the margin make it easy to create a snarky list of words that offend John Bolton . . .

Given Bolton's about face on this document, it appears that the US has been negotiating in bad faith up to now. I can't imagine the politics, but I wonder if there is redress from those who have dealt in good faith. The US position shouldn't change drastically because of one new representative.

Steve - I hope you're ensuring that all the members of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee get this document. The deletions and modifications are really shocking. Back to business as usual for Mr. Bolton.

Color me stunned ----- NOT!!

Condi may be of a different ilk than Bolton but she got rolled when she was NSA, she is getting rolled now, and will continue to be rolled. She may have the presidents ear but Rove and Cheney own him.

I don't belive Bolton's actions now are "going off the farm" I think what he is doing is what conservatives want him to do - get the US as far away from the UN as possible any way possible. By either making the US the rogue elephant (i.e. irrelevant) or by the US pulling support. Ultimately this ilk of conservatives really doesn't give a rats a** about the rest of the world much less what it thinks, unless they get in the way of US interests at which point to these people might makes right. They see value in partnerships when the US sets the rules - no matter how stupid the reasoning behind the rules and the rules themselves.

Koreyel's Law.

One thing that has happened, because of the Iraq war, is there have been a lot of Bush and Cheney's friends that have been raking in profits, while Americans foot the bill.

Another thing is we have built several bases in Iraq that promises to keep the terrorism flowing, while closing our own bases here.

Good? No. Profitable? Yes.

Bolton should just turn up at security council to veto as directed. The rest is just a waste of hot air. This stuff - indeed Bolton himself - will cut no ice with the international community. If it wasn't going to ignore him because of his history, his President or his mode of appointment, it certainly is going to ignore him now - diplomatically of course.