2008 Woodie Awards
Wussy liberalism is a path to irrelevance. Sadly, I think comments like these come out of a general ignorance of the Bolton story itself. Guest-blogging at Josh’s place in late August, Steve Clemons posted a leaked copy of John Bolton’s personal modifications as representative of the US’ view on the draft document for the Millenium Summit this past September. Anyone who has even a shred of decency in them has to be grossly offended by Bolton’s extremist views. I’ll spare making you go through all fourty pages (though you should), but page 2 by itself proves my point. Point 12 under the “Values and Principles” section was intended to say:
We reaffirm that gender equality and the promotion and protection of the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, in particular women and children, are essential to advance development, peace and security. We are committed to creating a world fit for future generations, which takes into account the best interests of the child.
Bolton wanted to delete the phrase “in particular women and children.”
When he was not chasing women down hotel hallways screaming like a maniac, John Bolton tries to undermine America’s commitment to human rights and fundamental values of gender equality. There’s no need to be “respectful” of people who very clearly assault basic standards of human decency- and in both his personal and professional life, Bolton has proven himself that type of person. Conservatives often stress that there are moral absolutes, and that liberals often behave relativistically, and that has often been true. I do wish liberals would recover the legacies of King and Gandhi, both of whom refused to bend in the face of what they knew was clearly repulsive behavior. We should call immorality by its name.
We certainly should fight “intolerance,” and that means standing up to thugs like John Bolton wherever they choose to rear their ugly heads. Tolerance is a two-way street, and when there’s no chance that the other side is interested in being an equal partner, we need to take Professor Wilentz’s advice and “fight like hell” against it. As Congressman John Lewis reminded students at the Campus Progress conference this summer, “you need to get in the way” against the people now in power. Those Yale students were ‘getting in the way’ in the small way they could, by standing up to a bully. We should be applauding them, rather than castigating them out of a misguided allegiance to “politeness,” which I’m sorry to say, my colleague Robby Braun appears to hold. God knows it’s time for a little impolitness in this country.
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