John Bolton Is, Like, Soooo Rude!

The Toronto Star has an article on U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton which barely alludes to any of the scandals which have recently plagued the no-longer-so-august institution.

In August 2005, before a historic summit aimed at eradicating dire poverty, a diminutive, mop-haired figure strode into the corridors of UN headquarters in New York and dropped a bombshell that blasted apart a year of diplomatic bridge-building.

John Bolton, Washington's newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations, had arrived on the scene, carrying a list of 750 amendments to the painstakingly negotiated summit document and changing its focus from poverty to administrative reform.

With less than a month to go until world leaders gathered for a widely anticipated endorsement of the paper, it was the diplomatic equivalent of "shock and awe."

"Bolton's views were well known, and there were expectations that he'd push hard on UN reform," says veteran Canadian diplomat Louise Fréchette, former deputy secretary general of the world body.

"But when he made such a huge case of it, people were taken by surprise."

Bolton's insistence on pushing Washington's reform agenda ahead of helping millions of poor people outraged developing countries, which had seen the summit as a boost for the UN Millennium Development Goals for wiping out the most extreme poverty by 2015. Some charged that the United States had "hijacked" the summit.

This sounds unreasonable unless you take Bolton's actions in light of the Oil For Food scandal. But, perhaps it's rude to mention that. So, the article didn't. It didn't mention the Congo sex scandal or the recent arrest of the head of the U.N.'s budget oversight committee on money-laundering charges, either. But fear not, they were very even-handed on the matter of Bolton's sartorial style.

So, our ettiquette lesson for the day, courtesy of the Toronto Star: One should never mention unpleasant things about major international institutions, but soliciting opinions on the personal grooming habits of one's ally's ambassador to said institution is perfectly acceptable. I mean, how else is he supposed to learn?

Now that I've made that perfectly clear, I'm off to watch some NASCAR.