"The Very Organization [Bolton] Would Serve"

Michael Kinsley remarked that a "gaffe" is usually just a situation in which you accidentally blurt out your actual opinions.

Seems like the hyperpartisan hack Dana Milbank at the WaPo has committed a Kinsley-type gaffe:

James Taranto, at OpinionJournal.com the other day, had a great catch. Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank had written, “Democrats . . . assailed Bolton’s knack for making enemies and disparaging the very organization he would serve.�

Hmmmm...? Which organization would Bolton be serving?

Has he been caught disparaging the United States Government or the Office of the President of the United States or the United States Department of State?

Of course not. He's disparaged the United Nations -- which, Dana Milbank accidentally admits is, by his lights at least, the organization that Bolton will "serve."

That encapsulated perfectly the Democratic mindset. You see, we Neanderthals think that the purpose of the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. is to serve the United States, particularly its foreign policy, as made by the government’s executive branch. It is the other view that the U.S. ambassador is to serve the United Nations — to be part of that clique, that bureaucracy. That is why Barbara Boxer and others shudder so at Bolton’s “contempt� for the United Nations. They love that body, and value it as a check — or a brake — on U.S. foreign policy.

Preach it, brother.

The UN is viewed by many liberals not as tool for advancing US interests but as a necessary and desirous impediment to the advancement of those interests. The fact that the UN acts as an opponent to the foreign policy of the US is, as Steven den Beste would say, not a flaw but a feature.

More From Nordlinger: He notices, for the billionth time, that the media doesn't seem to mind when liberal Democrats use the "slur" un-American.

Is this a verboten word or not? If it's uncivil, then the media had better start castigating Democrats when they use it. If it's permissible, then let me know, because I'm going to start using it like a brothertrucker.

posted by Ace at 12:46 PM

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