I just faxed a letter to Sen. Voinovitch supporting, and adding to, his objections to the nomination of John Bolton as our representative to the UN. I thought I'd post it here in case others might like to see the rationale advanced for opposing Bolton's nomination, and perhaps might like to modify or echo it in independent faxes to Voinovich or other Senators currently debating this issue.

Text of the Fax follows:

Dear Senator Voinovitch,

I want to support you in your articulate, clear, and principled stand against the appointment of John Bolton as our country's representative to the United Nations. I think you are absolutely right that choosing him as our country's representative will send absolutely the wrong message to the rest of the world about the role we wish to play in the world. Bolton would surely magnify our country's current problems, rather than aid in their resolution. Like you said so clearly in the Senate yesterday, I too care for the safety of my children and of our fellow citizens. The appointment of Bolton would only serve to put us all in greater danger than we are already in.

The main problem with the man, as I see it, is his character and personality. He lacks empathy. He is lacking in respect for the often differing opinions of the people he encounters and would need to work with. He lacks curiosity. He is not interested in considering the merits of the opinions of others. He can't look at an issue from points of view other than his own without devaluing and denigrating the opinions and sentiments of others. I expect he will a) be unable to learn from the input of others; and b) will alienate our potential allies and aggravate hostilities with those we are currently in conflict with. Smart as the man is, this is a most serious cognitive impairment in an interpersonal world. You don't want a man like this handing your country's relationships with the other people of the world.

Your Republican colleagues, of course, that he is President Bush's choice, and Dr. Rice's choice. But that's a main part of the problem. The administration is choosing unwisely in this case. Bolton shares the same blind spots as the rest of President Bush's administration. We have before us now more clearly than ever the results of President Bush's blind spots. We are at war. We are using our power and wealth in a vain and blind attempt to kill off the people we disagree with, rather than pursue a constructive resolution of our conflict with them. We are sending our children, our soldiers to their deaths, and maiming them for life, thinking naively in their faith and optimism that they are saving our country and protecting us, when actually they are recruiting, so unnecessarily, more enemies that will hate us and our children for decades to come. We don't need to do this. It's a waste, and it's wrong. It solves no problem, and it creates a myriad new ones. Yes, Bolton will continue and advocate for a role of the United States in the world that has so far proven disastrous, deadly, foolhardy, enormously expensive in money, lives, and prestige, and is dangerous to us all. We know, on one level, that what goes around, comes around. When we export violence to the world; we invite the importation of violence to our own county on a commensurate scale, or greater. How could President Bush, and his administration, not realize what so many ordinary folk do realize in their everyday lives?

In choosing Bolton as his man, President Bush and Condoleeza Rice are but blundering further on an already calamitous course. We have only to look around us, to watch the news in the evening, to see the disastrous effects we have been creating throughout a large part of the world, and at home, through our misguided foreign policy.

This is thus a critical opportunity for those in the Senate and especially those in his own party to not only argue for a different course, but to try once more to suggest (or make necessary) a different and more moderate course in our foreign policy. Bush to me is like an impetuous teenager in foreign affairs who has to be taught and wisely advised how to behave if he wants to serve our country well. Vice President Cheney cannot do this. He is part of the problem. He chose a terribly unqualified person in President Bush to lead us in the first place. He too doesn't see the problem in our current leadership. He sees the problem as all on the other side, as does Bush. Neither can, for the life of them or for our lives, see our own role in bringing about and sustaining and feeding the problem. "Would to God the gift he give us, to see ourselves as others see us." That requires empathy, and a respect for others that no one in the current administration seems to have. This is the Senate's opportunity to advise the president.

So please, continue your eloquent, if frustratingly lonely, stand. Be indeed a Profile in Courage, leading our country as you see the light. Don't cave in. Don't let the blind lead the blind to their own destruction, and to our destruction along with them. Nor is the destruction of our "enemies" justified, when we could much better and far more effectively resolve the problems we face in a constructive manner. Anyone we insult, humiliate, offend, threaten, and harm will sooner or later become our enemies. Becoming our enemies is one way they say to us that we have offended and harmed them, and that they can no longer trust us to do anything but that. Of course they will find they can no longer afford to let us to do that. One way or another, they will find a way to bring us to our senses, to teach us a lesson we apparently have yet to learn.

Note that no one in our current administration has ever proposed looking for a constructive win-win solution to our current problem with terrorism. They are not interested in that. Perhaps they do not understand the possibility or means of achieving that. And if they do not, they are fundamentally incompetent in this respect, and should by no means be entrusted with the leadership of our entire country in these perilous times.

Unfortunately, few if any of your Republican colleagues really understand the vital importance of your objections to Bolton's nomination. I know that's frustrating. It frustrates me and many others also. The problem, I fear, is that they too share a set of values and a personal orientation in which the feelings and viewpoints of people other than themselves are really not valued, respected, or understood. They are like pre-school children in their emotional growth, who want what they want, and want it how they want it and when they want it, don't care a wit about how any other kid, or kids, feel about it. They haven't quite learned the importance of understanding the analogous perspectives of others before deciding how best to proceed. Discussion or debate only confuses and frustrates them. They don't know yet how to use it to come up with better solutions for all parties involved. And so, in the case of the UN, they'd just as soon not have it at all. International discussion with our allies is perceived as only a waste of time, and as essentially in conflict with our own interests. They basically concur with Bolton's perspective, in other words. And they basically concur with Bush, Cheney, and Rice's perspective, which is essentially the same as Bolton's and the same as their own. The problem, therefore, is not really Bolton, but the entire administration and much of the Party and much of our own country as well. That's the problem. But Bolton's nomination symbolizes it, and should be discussed, and objected to, as a way to bring the larger issues out in a more widespread discussion. The good of our country requires this kind of leadership.

And, thankfully, this is the kind of leadership you have been exercising. Thank you for your insight, and wisdom. Thank you for trying to lead our country along a better path. I hope my remarks here are helpful to you in both re-enforcing and supporting your own view, and maybe also in extending and deepening them. I've given a lot of thought recently to just what the real nature of our problem as a country is, and to what we can do about it. And I think the Bolton nomination is a key place to open and extend a dialogue, and to create an opportunity for the citizens and officials of our country to learn from that dialogue. We need to not just object, but to educate and leadâ€"in a much better direction.

Hope this helps.

Respectfully,

Michael O'Brien
Lincoln, MA