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Jewish World Review April 11, 2001 / 18 Nissan, 5761
Michael Ledeen
Pincus's target this time is my friend and colleague John
Bolton, recently nominated for the post of undersecretary of
state for arms control and international security. The charge?
He "was paid $30,000 over three years in the mid-1990s by
Taiwan's government for research papers on U.N.
membership issues involving Taiwan." Not only that, but
Bolton also testified to Congress, supporting Taiwan's full
membership in the United Nations.
Imagine! Does Pincus think that Taiwan should have hired
one of the countless members of the Communist Chinese
chorus to write the papers for them? Did the Taiwanese show
bad judgment when they asked one of the most respected
and literate policy intellectuals in town to write them? Not at
all. Was there anything untoward in these actions? Well, the
whole story was told to the Office of Government Ethics and
the state department's Legal Advisor's Office, as well as to
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and none of them
found anything wrong.
Maybe it's an out-and-out policy spat. But no, when Senator
Kerry challenged Bolton's views on U.N. membership for
Taiwan, Bolton pointed out that it would be improper for him,
in his new post, to advocate (even) diplomatic recognition of
the place.
So why is the Post so exercised? Why did they unleash
Walter Pincus for a full quarter of the page on this non-event?
The answer, as I am sure the profs in the journalism
departments are pointing out to their students even now, is to
be found in the accompanying photograph, which shows
Bolton eyeing a "disputed ballot" in Palm Beach County. You
see, Bolton was part of the Jim Baker team that sacrificed its
eyesight (and, no doubt, a significant chunk of its sanity) to
the endless recount of chads and dimples after the November
election. And that, dear friends, is considered criminal in the
corridors of the gray Stalinist building on 15th Street that
encases the Post's staff.
This sort of thing used to have an effect, but everyone seems
to have recognized it as a failed prank. When I checked with
the State Department late Monday afternoon, I was told
there hadn't been a single call from the media on the matter.
This may be yet another blow to Walter Pincus's self-esteem,
but he and his wife can always do a reprise of their fabulous
dinner party for the Clintons a few years ago, when Mrs.
Pincus was a political appointee in the Executive Branch.
They can certainly count on gushing coverage from the
04/05/00: Chinese over-water torture
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