JIMMY CARTER TAKES ON JOHN BOLTON AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OVER UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

Right Wingnuttia is after the head of former president Jimmy Carter. Seems Carter, along with Bishop Desmond Tutu and other Nobel Prize winners, is backing the UN resolution to form an improved Human Rights Councilagainst the wishes of US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and the Bush administration. It is an imperfect solution, but an improvement, and the only one likely to pass at the current time.

Mr Annan, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Louise Arbour, and two leading human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, say the compromise proposal is still worth supporting. They have been joined by former US president Jimmy Carter and several other Nobel Prize winners who issued a joint letter calling on the US and others to back the deal.

Mr Annan, who discussed the new council on Sunday with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, appealed on Monday for the US to "join the vast majority of governments who seem ready to accept" the proposal. He and other supporters said it constituted a serious improvement on the existing commission.

"We are a country that puts high value on human rights. We wouldn't vote in favour if we weren't sure it was going to be an improvement," said Chile's UN ambassador, Heraldo Muqoz, a dissident who was jailed under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Steve Clemons asserts that Bolton's opposition is insincere, that out of 30 meetings regarding the Council, he only attended one, and that his hard-line stance is an effort to create a political issue for '06.

The ultra-conservative NewsMax makes hay out of Carter's statement, "Carter told the Council: "My hope is that when the vote is taken, the other members will outvote the United States," noting that, "Publications that customarily do not support the Bush administration or Bolton, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have come out in support of Bolton’s efforts." Yeah, right. The NYTimes and WaPo now have a five-year record of not just supporting but applauding numerous ill-conceived-and-executed Bush administration efforts, a record that eclipses any former reputation for liberal thought or news presentation.

Yesterday Sean Hannity on his radio show virtually insisted that Carter be branded a traitor for "going against his own country. Can you believe that? A former president of the United States who would back other countries against his own?" What the right wing echo chamber either doesn't understand (and I doubt that) or refuses to acknowledge is that Carter is not opposing his own nation -- he's opposing the Bush administration. The right-wing attitude that Bush is the nation (like General Bullmoose of "Li'l Abner" fame -- "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA!") reminds one of DeGaulle's famous "L'etat, c'est moi!" (I am the state!). It's just more of this imperial presidency crap that should frighten the pants off any real American. Our whole history was based on rejection of a monarchy, yet around a third of our citizens seem ready and willing to make Dubya the object of an American-style Restoration. Of course, they'd only support such a presidency as long as a Republican occupied it, so they don't ever speak of what that does to the rule of law and how they'd proceed if a Democrat acceded to the presidency.

I suspect that's because they think they've fixed it so that can never again happen.

Tags: John Bolton, UN Human Rights Council, Jimmy Carter