By: Mary Lyon

Watching the antics of Junior in the White House reminds me of something my son did when he was maybe four or five years old. His dad told him not to do something and his reaction was to turn to his older sister and whisper “I guess we’re going to have to sneak.” Fortunately, our boy learned enough, via both gentle positive and negative reinforcement to be a little more circumspect, and above-board in his dealings. He also learned that it’s not a good idea to try that sneaking schtick to land what you want, because sometimes there’s a very good reason why you’re not supposed to get your way.

Clearly, George “Arrested Development” Bush never learned this. Evidently, somewhere around the age of my son in his own emerging sneakiness, Little George learned that the most important thing in life, for him, was always to get his way. He may have thrown tantrums, he may have grown sullen and pouty, he may have tried to con his nannies and baby-sitters (and maybe also his mom, unless of course he learned this from her example) with a lot of sweet talk to lull them into nonvigilance. And THEN, he’d see the way clear, around behind their backs, to go out and do what he wanted to do, ANYWAY. So THERE! You could probably hear him mumble “oh YEAH? Well, up YOURS!” under his little breath. Evidently, it worked and worked and worked and worked and worked again and again, so well that it was quickly imprinted on his character that this was the way to go.

It worked again earlier this week with the recess appointment of the abominable John Bolton as UN ambassador. Those of us who objected strongly to this raging, antagonistic, disgraceful, loud-mouth domestic terrorist as OUR face and voice at the United Nations did our best to stall it. With very good reason. The guy doesn’t know how to get along with people – except for a very narrow subset of those who either agree with him on absolutely everything, or pay him well. Unfortunately, at an outfit like the UN, you have all kinds of people from all kinds of nations, belief systems, faiths, creeds, philosophies, and world views, and you have to be able to do business with them all to one extent or other. Bullying isn’t how you do that. But John Bolton might as well change his last name to Bully, because that’s exactly what he is, and what he does. Yeah, that sure is a great way to win friends and influence people, especially in the international community where we desperately need all the friends we can get.

Even some Republicans in the Senate had serious misgivings. Bolton actually drove the addled and confused George Voinovich to tears as he agonized about bolting from Bush’s designated hitter – and he’s supposed to be on Bush’s side. People all over the State Department, who’d had the great displeasure of working with Bolton expressed their own hesitation. They knew from hard, difficult experience that this guy couldn’t even manage a Rodney King (“can’t we all just get along?”) if his life depended on it. And he’s supposed to be one of our diplomats now. Dubya should have just appointed a remote-controlled stink bomb for the job. It’d be as effective as Bolton stands to be, and wouldn’t cost anything. Never mind what people who knew him and tried to work with him had to say. Bush wanted his way. And when he wasn’t handed this prize on the customary hand-engraved, hand-carried sterling silver platter, he went around the Senate’s back at recess time and put Bolton in the job anyway. So THERE! Up YOURS!

Bush claims he wants his human flame-thrower to go to the UN and shake things up, and “reform” the place. Like it’s our privilege to do that? The cheapskates on the conservative side say because we’re the host nation and we pay the most, we oughta be able to sling our weight around any old way we like. But that’s not how the UN is supposed to work. The whole idea was to get ALL nations together to discuss, debate, and come to reasonable conclusions and resolutions that serve the good of all. I guess perhaps that’s the gist of the problem with those who complain so loudly about our participation in a world body like the UN. They can’t see past their own borders far enough to consider what might benefit our world, rather than exclusively our little corner of the world. Perhaps the UN opponents and fellow regressives chafe against that organization simply because they’re only in it for themselves, and the UN calls for a somewhat broader view of cohabitational life on this planet. Up YOURS!

I feel bad for the folks at the UN – and everyone they represent back in their home countries. They’re about to have the flip side of the Rodney King experience: not the “can’t we all just get along” part, but the beating, bullying, and brickbat part that King received at the hands of some overzealous LAPD officers. And that whole experience worked out just fine, now, didn’t it (she said, remembering the horrific rioting, looting, mayhem, and civil upheaval that tore Los Angeles apart after those officers were let off the hook in 1992). It took a long time to rebuild, recover, and reconnect after the Rodney King incident. Who can tell how long it’ll take for the United Nations to recover from the kerosene enema treatment Bush has just sent them?

I feel bad for the UN people because, like those who struggled with Bolton in the State Department, I, too, know what it’s like to have to work with a monster. Golly gee, but it’s just a whole lotta fun, let me tell ya. I once worked at one of the then-fledgeling cable networks for perhaps the most miserable three months of my entire career. I was an assignment editor, hired in by a bureau chief who was willing to consider letting me learn and maybe even move up. Then, unfortunately, he left. His replacement was recruited straight from the bowels of Hell.

This large, muscular human flame-thrower arrived in our bureau, determined to make things over his way. Actually, the term “determined to work things over” would fit better. This guy had multiple Emmys to his credit, and a long resume going back to coverage of the Vietnam War (which had me convinced he must have spent most of his time over there trying to fuse the best of “Apocalypse Now” and “The Deer Hunter” into his psyche). But he knew NOTHING of people skills. In a few short weeks, he had the entire office completely terrorized. People worked in fear so thick that it gummed up the insides of your nostrils as soon as you walked through the front doors. The women’s restroom was ALWAYS over-crowded, because that’s where the interns would hide for large chunks of every hour. His modus operendi was yelling, screaming, threatening, and physically endangering people. His reputation for throwing typewriters and other equipment through high-rise windows (after just missing someone’s head) had followed him to our office. You could routinely hear him shrieking at people through two sets of closed doors (no exaggeration here – it was impossible to miss). I actually witnessed him making a grown man cry – one of the reporters who’d earned his ire and therefore also his tormenting. Needless to say, the morale in the bureau was down in the bottom of the L.A. sewer system as frightened people cowered at their desks, nervously shifting their eyes and reaching for their Rolaids, and hiding the resumes they were busily updating when they heard him coming. It was astonishing that ANY actual work got done. In one of my few (and DEEPLY unpleasant) encounters with him, in which he worked hard to frustrate and discourage my hopes of advancement, he threatened personally to knock me “through the floor.” By the time he fired me, much to my relief, I’d become seriously concerned for my safety, wondering how much longer it would be before he’d be aiming one of those flying typewriters at my head.

I feel for those poor souls at the UN. They’re in for a lollapalooza of an “up YOURS” from John Bolton. A two-level “up YOURS,” actually, because there’ll be the one from Bolton himself, and the one Bolton embodies – issued by George “up YOURS” Bush. If what happened at that L.A. bureau is any indication, the UN is in for some stormy times where little if anything significant is accomplished, except for the pouring of salt and battery acid into the gaping and still oozing wounds in our country’s relations with the rest of the world. We’ll be lucky to get out of this with conditions remaining merely as bad as they have been. They’re not going to get better with a poisonous pustule like Bolton emotionally ransacking the place.

I hope to heaven that Bolton becomes the “gift” that keeps on giving – at least to Bush and his backwards-leaning buddies. I hope those Republicans in the Senate who fought Bolton’s installment as hard as the Democrats did will enjoy being sucker-punched by their president, ramrodding another offensive maneuver down their reluctant throats. Will they be happy with the results – since Bolton is THEIR face and voice to the world, also? Will they be willing to keep swallowing yet another “up YOURS” – knowing that their senatorial advise-and-consent role has been rudely trashed because spoiled little Junior just had to have his way? Will they do something about it? Or will they allow the doctrine of “up YOURS” to prevail formally at the UN? And I wonder how they’ll feel when others in that world body take a page from the Bush/Bolton playbook and show us how it feels when they serve that “up YOURS” back at us? It would serve them right for accommodating the greedy arrogant little boy who was never taught to make room for somebody else’s way. But the rest of us certainly don’t deserve it.

Visualize IMPEACHMENT.
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Mary Lyon spent the first 25 years of her adult life as a broadcast journalist, at Los Angeles radio stations KRTH-FM, KFWB-AM, KHJ-AM and KLOS-FM, the NBC, ABC, and RKO Radio Networks, plus KTLA-TV. She retired from day-to-day broadcasting in 1996, after covering Hollywood for nine years in radio, TV, and print, for the Associated Press. She wrote and illustrated "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood," and is presently at work on a new craft book for kids and friends. A lifelong Democrat who began her political involvement in the Student Coalition for Humphrey-Muskie, and Tom Bradley's first L.A. Mayoral campaign, Mary currently is a weekly columnist for www.democrats.us - from the Left.