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Kissing up, kicking down

By ROBERT FRIEDMAN
Published April 24, 2005

All of us have worked with a guy like John Bolton.

Carl W. Ford, a crusty former assistant secretary of state, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton, President Bush's choice to serve as ambassador to the United Nations is a "kiss up, kick down" kind of guy.

Melody Townsel, a former contract worker for the Agency for International Development, wrote an open letter to the committee describing how Bolton chased her through a hotel, threw things at her and followed her to her room "to pound on the door and shout threats" because she had complained about the incompetence of a company Bolton represented at the time. He was "genuinely behaving like a madman," Townsel wrote.

Two other former Bush administration officials, a biological weapons expert and an intelligence officer, testified that Bolton worked to have them removed from their jobs because he objected to their assessments of Cuba's weapons capabilities - assessments that, from all other credible evidence, turned out to be correct.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said Bolton "is incapable of listening to people and taking into account their views. He would be an abysmal ambassador."

Plenty of other people, afraid that Bolton and his powerful allies would retaliate against them, have told similar stories only anonymously. All the criticism finally caused the Republican-dominated Senate committee to delay what had started out as a perfunctory confirmation process to take a closer look at Bolton's record.

"My conscience got me," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, whose change of heart helped to force the postponement of the committee's vote on Bolton's confirmation. In Congress, those words are heard about as often as "bullfrogs are flying out of my bodily orifices."

Yes, we all know the John Bolton type. They get pleasure from bullying subordinates. They especially like to intimidate women. But they turn on the smarmy charm whenever the boss is around.

I don't like Bolton's politics. He's one of those ideological nuts who doesn't let the facts get in the way of his opinions. But being a jerk isn't a partisan issue. President Clinton appointed a few jerks, too. For example, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, now the president of Harvard, is widely viewed as an overbearing know-it-all. But at least Summers is a "kick up, kick down" kind of guy. He was never shy about offending his superiors, whereas Bolton assiduously butters up his bosses.

I figure President Bush wants Bolton at the United Nations precisely because he's a jerk. The president has contempt for U.N. diplomats, and making them spend their days sitting in the same room with Bolton is probably the worst punishment he can think of.

Plus, moving Bolton to the United Nations would offer one other benefit for the president: He wouldn't have to sit in the same room with Bolton anymore. To paraphrase Alejandro Escovedo's Castanets, Bolton is one of those people you like better when he walks away.

Castanets happens to be one of the songs on the president's iPod. We know this because Mark McKinnon, the Bush media strategist who helped download the songs, told us so, which obviously makes the list suspect.

Still, I don't see much political calculation in the president's alleged iPod list. It includes the most predictable and least interesting songs of artists such as Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell, which show Bush (like Clinton before him) to have the musical tastes of the typical aging white guy who'd like to think he isn't quite ready for the rocking chair. It includes the obligatory country/Texas artists - but a lot of them are top-notch country/Texas artists, such as George Jones and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

And it includes some relatively obscure talents - Escovedo, James McMurtry and the Gourds, for example - whose excellent work probably would offend most of Bush's political base, except for the fact that most of Bush's political base has never heard of them.

But as McKinnon told the New York Times, "If any president limited his musical selection to pro-establishment musicians, it would be a pretty slim collection."

I found the president's playlist reassuring. It's evidence that he's a pretty normal guy. If you're listening to James McMurtry's worldview while you're pedaling your mountain bike, some of it has to sink in.

I know this much: John Bolton isn't listening to the Gourds - or anybody else, apparently.

[Last modified April 24, 2005, 01:03:20]