That Man Bolton

What's that? You want to read a column written by the Internet's dumbest man? A man who makes Bill O'Reilly seem measured and reasonable? A man whose notion of nuanced cultural analysis is Wally George interviewing Ann Coulter? Well, look no further. I give you Fox News' very own John Gibson.

John Bolton isn't a household name yet, but the end of "yet" is just around the corner.

That's his lead-off sentence this week. There's something about Gibson's prose style I can't quite put my finger on...It's clumsy, yes, and indicates a baffling lack of insight. But there's something else. His writing appears to break several rules of grammar and syntax, yet I think his word usage is technically correct. "The end of 'yet' is just around the corner," though...who writes like that?

Now, some might argue that the only thing a U.S. ambassador to the U.N. should do is drop by to deliver our resignation letter and a demand to get out of the United States. But that's not why Bolton is going to the U.N.

He's, of course, going for the world-class buffet.

Please note that Gibson once again uses the old Fox News "some have said" trick. This trick is so old, Robert Greenwald has already made a documentary explaining its usage (the film is Outfoxed), but Gibson hopes we're not savvy enough to have seen the movie. Basically, instead of coming out and offering a dumb, lunatic theory as his own (such as "the US should resign from the UN, an organization it functionally controls), John can make it sound like he's simply reporting news.

"Some have argued..." whatever you want. He still gets to say the fringe, idiot theory that Fox News wants you to know about, but he gets to later backtrack and say he never really believed it in the first place.

Sean Hannity does this all the time. "Senator, some have said that Bill Clinton was actually a zombie working under the control of Communists acting on behalf of George Soros. What do you think of that idea?"

But back to the Gibson article. He's about to tell us what John Bolton does plan to do with his newfound influence in the United Nations.

He's going there to give the 190 other nations in the U.N. a dose of reality that goes like this:

We're sick of this organization operating as an anti-American one-upmanship club.

Sorry, what?

You'd think, from reading that sentence, that the UN had prevented the United States from doing something important. In fact, the United Nations did nothing to stop our invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. They didn't send their own troops, but it's not like there were UN forces opposing us.

All that happened was that foreign diplomats used the United Nations as a platform to tell the world they thought the United States was wrong. And, folks, the United States was wrong. It's sad but true. Americans fell hook, line and sinker for a massive whopper of a lie, a lie that was funded and propogated by the executive and legislative branches of the government, the mass media and corporations with a financial stake in the war's outcome.

That's what happened.

But John Gibson wants you to think it's wrong for the United Nations or any members therein to say anything negative about the United States. Our country already controls the organization that's supposed to stand for international cooperation. But that isn't enough for J.G. He wants them to grovel and beg for our favor, he wants them to bow down to us and accept our total domination. He wants diplomats and ambassadors to silence themselves when their views don't line up with the power-hungry lunatic in the White House.

We're sick of paying the bills and getting trashed by every tin pot dictator the U.N. can invite into its midst.

It's very useful to follow John's logic carefully here. The United States "pays the bills" for the United Nations. So, he agrees, we control the organization that's supposed to stand for international cooperation. That's good, we're getting somewhere.

Therefore, since the US pays the bills, it's wrong for "tin pot dictators," whatever he means by that bizarre, confused slang, to say bad things about the United States. By extension, since the US pays the bills, they should get to determine who is and who is not a "tin pot dictator."

Because John's not suggesting we kick out every country from the UN that has what could be considered a dictatorship. He's not saying "trashed by every dictator," but "every tin pot dictator." That's hardly an exact term. So, of course, it's up to America to decide which dictators can stay and which can go.

We're sick of the U.N. acting as if the world — or the U.N. — can get along without the U.S.

And we're sick of all of you working against good ideas just because they come from the U.S. or from President Bush.

John is so pleased with America. He's constantly delighting himself with little paragraphs about how great the United States is and how much everyone needs us. I think he relates too personally to the idea of his nation. In other words, I think he's come to actually identify himself with "America," so he sees America's international diplomatic relationships and personal relationships in his own life.

"The world can't get along with me because I am so great. France is so mean for saying mean stuff about me, I hate him. Forget France, they're icky and gross and I'm not their friend any more. Iran just made a face at me!"

To be honest, I think a lot of people, okay a lot of conservatives, have this problem. Particularly hawk-ish kind of people, the kind of people who always think we should go to war. Allow me to explain.

There are certain experiences we have, particularly as children, that shape the way we think about interpersonal relationships. Life lessons, like "never back down when someone threatens you." That's an important lesson, because if you never stand up for yourself, you'll be repeatedly picked on and victimized.

But these principles don't apply to international relations. When you're speaking about countries and their diplomatic negotiations, you're talking about discussions that affect the lives of literally billions of people. So it's horribly irresponsible to apply interpersonal communication rules to diplomacy.

And yet that's what most Americans do when they think about American foreign policy. "Oh, North Korea said some bad shit about us? We should send a battleship there!" "Iraq broke this rule we told them never to break again! Let's bomb them."

That's what you'd do if it was a problem with another person. If you lent Toby $500 and he never paid you back, and then you found it he was telling everybody about how he ripped you off for $500 and about how he totally has the money but he's not going to give it to you ever, you'd be pretty much in the right going to Toby's apartment, roughing him up and taking the money.

But if Norway did that same thing to Finland, Finland might just have to take it to avoid further conflict. I'm not saying the old rules and manners never apply; I'm just saying there are more things to consider than pride.

But back to John Gibson's expert UN analysis:

Somebody has got to tell them. The Brits won't; the French won't because they're the worst offenders; and that vast collection of fat kleptocrats — so-called diplomats — from Third World countries won't either.

Told you..."Ooooooooohhhh, those French....they make-a me so maaaaad!"

I also like that he has to explain the kleptocrats joke. He knows this ain't exactly a New Yorker kind of audience he's reaching...

That latter group includes a huge number of so-called nations — really little more than spots on the map — that would get invaded, taken over, subsumed, eliminated from memory except no one wants to get stuck with their problems of poverty and disease and corruption. So by benefit of their sorry state, they get to maintain their independence and membership in the U.N. and their right to bitch out the U.S.

This man is so ugly inside. He really is. And he's so blissfully unaware of the blackness of his soul. He thinks evil is just common sense.

I mean, seriously, this is a paragraph written by a smarmy American who is reveling in the horror of life in the Third World. He first callously dismisses them as "spots on the map," as if the geographic size of a country had anything to do with the value of the human life therein. That would be like saying "Who cares if everyone in Newport News dies...Rhode Island is, like, totally small."

But that's not mean enough. He goes on to fantasize about how these countries could be vaporized (along with their native population, one can only assume). And as if musing unassumingly about the utter destruction of the Third World weren't enough, he goes on to comment that the only reason this hasn't yet happened is because these countries are so horrible, no one thinks they are worth invading.

John Gibson's telling the people of the Third World that, in his opinion, they are so insignificant, they're not worth destroying. What a sweetie.

And because these countries are fortunate to even exist, they shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion on America's massive and deadly war machine.

If you're poor, if you're not an American, if you don't like George Bush, John Gibson just plain doesn't like you.