It is precisely their lack of approval that gives him authority.

Perhaps the US should start selling bumper stickers that say "The Annans Keep It In The Family".

Ratbert is right. What has he got to lose? Bush should just let him do his own thing (in psycho mode). Banging on Annan door, chasing him down the hall asking him for explanations. Maybe Maureen Dowd will get a funny column out of it. Ahh on second thought that isn't likely.

I hope Bolton forces their hand and demands that the items be retrieved and each and every item destroyed. This might be a good use of Saddam's giant shredders.

bolton is just warming up for his star turn in the role of tourettes-stricken crank at the un.

or is the palestinian move away from suicide bombing and into nation branding the latest imminent threat to israel and western civilization?

Let's run another slogan, lonbud. Just for fun.

"Today the Rhineland, tomorrow the Sudetenland and Poland."

Sounds about as creepy as the Palestinian stuff.

So, lonbud, you approve of this UNDP funding? Maybe it ought to be doubled or tripled? Just curious, since personal attacks on John Bolton aren't really relevant here.

Why can't lonbud state his contempt for Mr. Bolton without name calling and/or flinging insults, and by the way, have victims of Tourettes all been identified as conservatives and, as such, exempt from the uber-sensitivity moonbats reserve for the afflicted?

It's a bit premature to declare suicide bombing a thing of the past, but in any case, we can't allow the UN to fund anymore pro-terrorist propaganda. Let them do it on their own dime.

Just settle back and watch the left self-destruct.

I am such the person we know as lonbud is quite moderate in his native milieu, and his words mark him as , well, a moonbat.

Let them rave, let them defend the undefensible. As time and history march on, as the cowardice and treason generation fades, the nation will, more and more, come to see them for what they are: their words convict them.

erp: Is the shredder for the literature or for the moonbats?

Lonbud: we prefer a more F*!@@##% COMSYMP MOONBAT! elevated RATS IN HIS SHORTS tone than that. Real sufferers how [Humorous but non-family friendly Dean-ite rant snipped] indeed by your attempt to score YEeeeeeeeeOOOW hey, I sound just like Howard Dean a cheap political point.

I'm left wondering why it would be wrong to have a Tourette's stricken crank at the UN. It's a bit milder than what I was hoping for from Bolton but better half a loaf than none.

P.S. lonbud, do you have any evidence whatsoever that the Palestinians are moving away from suicide bombings? Just how do you think the Palestinians intend (based on this slogan) to get the Jews out of Jerusalem?

The basis for most leftist argument consists of name calling and personal insult. Without that tactic little remains other than conspiracy theory or fear mongering through pseudo-science and appeals to envy and ignorance.

Lou. Just shred the literature.

We need moonbats to keep us ever vigilant.

You guys are picking on the UN, Ionbud and Howling Howard again.

If we have a tourett's stricken crank at the DNC, why not one at the UN? It will be refreshing. They haven't had one since Kruschev.

i apologize to the tourettes community.

my cheap, insensitive ploy, made in haste, a poking of the skunk, mere banging at the bars of the cage... i regret maligning innocent sufferers of a neurological disorder by comparing them with john bolton, who is actually just a butish lout without the least capacity for diplomacy.

stickers and t-shirts and mugs --oh my!

lonbud, thanks for answering my question about whether the UNDP ought to be funding Palestinian anti-Jewish propaganda--you do think it's OK. Good to know.

Where do you think the t-shirts and banners will be used? How come you didn't mention those?

erp: No need for them to do it on their own dime. If the UN bows out of the propaganda business, the EU will certainly pick up the check.

Fairy.

the palestinian move away from suicide bombing and into nation branding

I'm struck by lonbud's lauding of something called "nation branding." President Bush, working with Prime Minister Sharon, is directly and unilaterally responsible for whatever nation building the Palestinians are doing. It is one of his great accomplishments and is only possible because he ignored the UN and the international community. Nation branding, which is apparently the creation of a sense of nation by community hatred of Jews, is the perfect UN project.

"creation of a sense of nation by community hatred of Jews" ... and it comes with a logo, imprintable on a T-shirt or a coffee mug, no less! What a novel idea. I wonder where it came from.

joe,

Don't you know it's no big deal? Any other reaction to it--indeed, even pointing it out--is "hysterical."

Wonder what the moonbats would have thought if slogans like "God Bless America" or "Bush Rules/Allah Drools" were printed on banners and cups by the UN and distributed all over the Middle East?

Anyone know what the next level of moonbattery is called? I think this level is about maxed out.

"Today Gaza, Tomorrow Tehran and Damascus."

lonbud:

You say Bolton cannot do diplomacy. If the US isn't going to speak up at the UN, a la Monyihan or Kirkpatrick, then who will have the run of the place? What kind of ideas will rule?

At Turtle Bay, diplomacy is for enablers and cowards. We need a linebacker there, like Ray Nitzschke or Jack Lambert or even Ray Lewis. No niceties, just a firm forearm in the face. Kofi has enabled the deaths of probably 1.5 million on his watch. Time to pay for his dance with death.

david: well, of course sharon and bush are the only responsible parties.

the palestinians themselves have had absolutley nothing to do with anything regarding their prospects for statehood, nor with any concession or movement on the part of the u.s. or israel in the long history of the great conundrum known as the palestinian question.

to admit any different would be to back away from the strategy of dehumanizing the enemy that has characterized israel's entire approach to defending its own people all these years --and which now informs the u.s. approach to the GWOT.

much of the rest of the blather on this thread misses a crucial distinction (which tends to be a favored approach among the reactionary right): the UN didn't print the banners or the t-shirts or the mugs.

the UN funded support for communications to the public and media in Gaza, the content of which was the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority. the funding was made at the behest of donors and others who sought to facilitate Israel's peaceful withdrawal from Gaza and to help ensure stability during the pullout.

bolton's disapproval --and that of the juddites- would be more properly directed at the PA, an organization long-famous for being its own worst enemy, and not at the UN.

Lonbud: I understand that with your first two paragraphs you are aiming at sarcasm, but as they are entirely acurate, you miss sarcasm and hit irony.

I absolutely deny that I have ever dehumanized the Palestinians or anyone else. Show me where I have. Quite to the contrary, I believe that they are human beings morally responsible for their own actions and thus that they earn the responses they receive. Like much of the left, you seem to always wish to excuse the wogs and not hold them responsible for their actions. It is the left that dehumanizes the other, not the right.

Your last three paragraphs do head in the right direction, as you at least mouth the language of moral responsibility. I note, though, that they are somewhat inconsistent with your first point (point 1: the reasonable Palestinians deserve credit for progress made towards peace (which is nuts); point 2: the haples PA is its own worst enemy).

As for Feng Shui, are you really claiming that people can secure their qi by ensuring that their house is not built on a sleeping dragon?

erp !

Brilliant !!

If I had a bumper-sticker factory, I'd be printing "Bush Rules/Allah Drools" stickers tomorrow. I'll bet you could sell 100,000 of 'em.

"Feng Shui: Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem!"