The White House released a fact sheet yesterday entitled, “Setting the Record Straight: President Bush’s Foreign Policy Is Succeeding.” The sheet declares not once but four times that the administration “is rallying the world behind its policy,” and claims that “a consensus is building behind the President’s foreign policy approach.”
Actually, U.S. standing in the world has plummeted under the Bush administration, as John Bolton tacitly admitted yesterday. Asked who he would choose as Kofi Annan’s successor at the United Nations, Bolton acknowledged, “If I told you who I thought we thought the best candidate would be, it would probably be the kiss of death for that person.” Watch it:
As Jeffrey Laurenti writes in a new piece for Mother Jones:
It is fair to say that no one has done more to isolate the United States in world councils than Mr. Bolton, who has virtually alone opposed, time and again, the path-breaking reform initiatives that have passed the U.N. since he arrived.
Full transcript: Read more
