Diplomatic Tomfoolery

(AP)

It's getting buried by the al-Zarqawi news, but yesterday mustachioed American ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton had the ambassadorial version of a hissyfit over the words of U.N. Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown.

On Tuesday, Brown berated the United States for not sufficiently supporting the U.N. and encouraging the international body's critics. "The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable," he said.

Brown also played media critic: "Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News," he said.

Shockingly, the criticisms did not play well with Bolton.

"I've known you since 1989, and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen in that entire time," he told Secretary General Kofi Annan. He called Brown's a "condescending, patronizing tone about the American people. Fundamentally, very sadly, this was a criticism of the American people, by an international civil servant, and it's just illegitimate," adding: "Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I feel, will be the United Nations."

Oh, it's on.

Howard Kurtz tracked down Limbaugh's response:

"So Mark Malloch Brown is saying the reason that the United Nations is unrecognized for its greatness and its value, the reason that it's not recognized for its true benefit to world peace and blah, blah, blah, blah, is because of me and Fox News poisoning your minds. What's new? This is just another pointy-headed, elitest liberal say you're a bunch of mind numbed robots and you can't make up your own minds about things. The United Nations has not changed. It's still the bar scene in the first Star Wars movie."

Let's break down all this ridiculous posturing, shall we? First off, Brown is being condescending. Can you imagine Dick Cheney saying that Tony Blair wasn't doing enough to make those Welsh sheep-shaggers understand the wonders of American foreign policy? Wouldn't go over that well. There may be some truth in Brown's critique, but he's a diplomat, for heavens sake. Maybe there was a way to make the point without gratuitously attacking Middle America?

And then there's Bolton, who spoke as if he had no control over the long-term impact of Brown's "mistake." Instead of taking up the substance of Brown's critique of the U.S. administration, he responded as if the argument was a criticism of the American people and nothing more. And he resorted to veiled threats (and a ridiculous passive voice) in his response concerning the ultimate "victim" of Brown's outburst.

And, finally, we have Rush, who uttered this sentence: "This is just another pointy-headed, elitist liberal say you're a bunch of mind numbed robots and you can't make up your own minds about things." And followed it with this: "The United Nations has not changed."

In other words, "Don't believe the effete liberal! You can make up your own mind! Now…Here's What To Think."

Ah, the delicate dance of diplomacy, together with the fair-mindedness and restraint of radio punditry. And they say there are no heroes left.

[bob___k]

mailpro56, LOL. I think you likely have him pegged. I don't think they're really interested in interacting with their readers. Their bubble might burst. If they were, one would think they'd leave posts open for comment for 72hrs after the last comment, rather than 72hrs after the item posting. You can't actually have a good discussion when you know that any exchange of ideas is going to be limited to at most 72hrs. Any last minute comment remains at the top of the comment list and can't be challenged by another poster. I find the comment order cumbersome. If there are several comments before I've read any of them, I find myself constantly scrolling down to the initial one and starting from there. Otherwise I get lost when one post refers to a previous one I haven't gotten to yet. They could get rid of that view touting editors choice and replace it with readers choice. It could contain a list of popular posts readers comment on. All in all I think they're trying to do as little as possible and still claim to show concern for the reader's opinion.

[sanfelz]

Mr. Brown should be cautious. If one criticizes Bush/Cheney or any of their supporters, the full wrath of the CIA, FBI,the Murdoch MegaMedia empire and Rush will combine to blame everything on their nebulous concept of liberal devils. No one from the Daddy Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld troika can support the UN because the UN does not try to mold every nation to be clones of the US.

[bob___k]

Here's a link to a site that has a pretty good fisking of Brown's remarks. http://www.di2.nu/200606/07d.htm For those who don't know, a fisking is a point by point deconstruction of the remarks. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Fisking

[mailpro56]

Bob_K Don't expect to hear back from Brian. You can always see his bias in starting subjects. Like why did he need to refer to Bolton as the 'mustachioed'....there was one reason he did that...to tick off Bolton supporters. It was a childish cheapshot. Did you ever hear him refer to the 'lantern jawed' Kerry or the 'potbellied' Michael Moore? Take a look at the publications he has written for and you can see why he is in the Mark Malloch Brown camp. You didn't see him take a shot at Brown for that 'Noel Coward' accent. But it was OK for him to take two cheapshots at Bolton. Mr. Montopoli is one of those Upper West Side CBS New York Liberals, who will never understand Middle America.

[bob___k]

Brian, To me, your use of 'shockingly' was ambiguous as to whether it was meant to be sarcasm. Now I find out you meant it sneeringly. Perhaps you would clarify your use of the phrase 'hissy fit' in reference to Bolton's response. When I went to school it meant the same as a childish tantrum. You don't seem to have much respect for Bolton. Do you really believe he should have replied privately in a compromising tenor to an unwarranted public rebuke of the US? That would leave US citizens thinking what Brown says may be the truth. I ask you again. What 'truth' did you find in Brown's critique?

[foobarbaz-2009]

Hey Brian - what do you call Dan Rather's posturing on the forged George Bush documents. He acted pretty condescending to those who would even question that the documents were fake and to this day he won't even admit it. Why do think that everyone is tuning out SEE BS and switching to Fox News, where they are ACCURATELY reporting all of the bad things that the UN does. Those of us in "flyover" country do not like the UN and wish that it would be abandoned.

[actric3]

One American, The US also has an amazing record for only supporting countries when it is in their benefit. Like Somalia, whom we have left to die amidst their anarchy and drought, except for recent talks to intervene again once we discovered that there were untapped oil resources there. Convient isn't it. And as for the UN, the US has a nice, well-known record for never paying their dues or being in favor of humanitarian intervention unless the nation in question can somehow be exploited by the US. How caring of us. Not to mention that in every IMF and World Bank legislation we spearhead, the US insists that the countries in need have to lower all their environmental, financial, and protective standards so that they can be easily exploited. Wow, unselfish, huh. And Brown did not make any insults to the American people. He never even mentioned them. That was Bolton's way of trying to spin the criticism the other way to take focus off of the truth in it.

[one_american]

Yah, Brian. When I said you were the one having the hissyfit, I was being "sarcastic", too. *cough*

[gardis72]

Thank you, Bob_K. Right on. You have to understand the Useless Nations is the liberal lodestone. Can you imagine trusting that despicable organization to defend this country. That's why John Kerry is not President today, and George Bush is. We don't trust you, don't trust the UN, and never will.

[one_american]

actric3, No country on earth does more to unselfishly support, both militarily and financially, the rest of the world INCLUDING the United Nations. For that jerk Brown to make his comments is desrespectful of those U.S. Citizens that pay the bills for that defunct organization. He may be your hero, but to me he is lower than whale dung for insulting all of Americans, whether or not he was including the current Administration.