Bolton not fit to serve as ambassador
Robert Iafolla
Issue date: 4/18/05 Section: Opinions
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Even before last week's hearings, he seemed a poor fit for the post. An unflagging advocate of U.S. unilateralism and hegemony, Bolton said in 1994, "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States."
Other warning signs emerged from the hearings. The State Department's former intelligence chief called Bolton a "serial abuser" of subordinates and "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy."
Bolton has abused power as well as people, illustrated by his own admission to eavesdropping on American officials by accessing phone calls and e-mails intercepted by the National Security Agency and by reports that he tried to remove an intelligence analyst whose conclusions he disagreed with.
Perhaps most troubling was the revelation that besides being an ideologue and a power-tripping bully, Bolton is - for lack of a more diplomatic word - a liar.
He displayed dishonesty that goes beyond unsubstantiated claims, such as his 2002 assertion that Cuba had biological weapons and provided them to "other rogue states."
Bolton lied openly and oafishly to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, like a schoolboy explaining that a dog ate his homework.
In a portion of testimony reported by Martin Schram of the Scripps Howard News Service, Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) asked Bolton about the Law of the Sea Treaty, which the United States has not yet signed, despite support from Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Vern Clark.
Bolton responded by saying that the administration currently supports the treaty, and he supports what the administration supports. When asked for a personal opinion, Bolton said he had never read the treaty.
"Well, now, in an article in a book entitled 'Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations,'" Sarbanes said, "you called the Law of the Sea Treaty 'not only undesirable as a policy, but also illegitimate methods of forcing fundamental policy changes on the United States outside the customary political process.'"
To this, Bolton backtracked and said that he had concerns in the '80s, but the Clinton administration fixed them in the '90s.
The catch is, as Sarbanes pointed out, Bolton wrote the article in 2000.
Of course, it's hardly front-page news that a politician lied. But Bolton's brazen mendacity differs from the skillful, subtle untruths usually uttered by our elected officials and bureaucrats.
There are two types of common political lies: the noble lie, and what I call rhetorical obfuscation.
The noble lie has its origins in Plato's "Republic." Basically, Plato said that most people are too stupid to look after their own society, and the enlightened few should be free to mislead the vulgar many to keep proper social order.
Political philosopher Leo Strauss, the intellectual grandfather of the neoconservatives, took Plato's concept further. According to scholar Shadia Drury, Strauss argued the wise elite must use deception, both to spare the feelings of the public and to protect the elite from reprisal.
Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and fake ties to al-Qaida are classic noble lies. The Bush administration decided to invade Iraq to protect American interests in the Middle East, namely oil and Israel, but they sold the public on a more politically tenable justification. Paul Wolfowitz, who as the deputy secretary of defense was an architect of the war, commented candidly about the public rationale to Vanity Fair.
"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz said.
The second type of lie common to politics is rhetorical obfuscation, which turns conventional wisdom about names and words on its head.
"What's in a name?" William Shakespeare once wrote. "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Pollster and consultant Frank Luntz proved the bard wrong and George Orwell right by finding words that, while not technically false, can manipulate the audience's emotion to shape public opinion.
"Words alone can be found in a dictionary or a telephone book, but words with emotion can change destiny, can change life as we know it," Luntz said in an interview for the PBS show "Frontline." "We know it has changed history; we know it has changed behavior; we know that it can start a war or stop it. We know that words and emotion together are the most powerful force known to mankind."
So the estate tax becomes the "death tax." Global warming becomes "climate change." In Bush's plan to revamp Social Security, private accounts become "personal accounts." And Bush's pro-business environmental policies become the "Healthy Forest Initiative" and the "Clear Skies Initiative."
But with Bolton, we see neither a Straussian noble lie nor a careful manipulation of rhetoric, just a brazen, inexcusable lie. Perhaps he is thumbing his nose at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, signaling it doesn't matter what he says, he will be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because Bush said so.
However, his dishonesty also shows a lack of personal credibility, which is a vital currency for diplomats. And while it's nice to believe the truth is always sufficient, should a diplomat need to lie to protect the United States, they must be smooth and convincing, not crude and blunt.
If the Senate won't reject Bolton for being a power-abusing bully who opposes the existence of the very organization he will work with, they should reject him for being a bumbling liar.
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Robert Iafolla's column "Blown Into Proportion" runs Mondays. To comment on this article, e-mail dtrojan@usc.edu or call (213)740-5665.
