Amb. Susan Rice's Spokesperson calls out John Bolton's former Spokesperson

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from Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch: http://www.undispatch.com/node/9514


February 1, 2010

Last week, the communications director for the past four Republican U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations wrote a scurrilous attack on Susan Rice on Huffington Post. I call the attack "scurrilous," because as I noted at the time, the author completely mis-characterized the findings of a report to suggest that Rice was insufficiently engaged at the United Nations.

Today, the current communications director of the United States Mission to the UN, Mark Kornblau, hits back on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-kornblau/us-leadership-at-the-unit_b_444485.html

As spokesman for Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, one charge I never thought I'd have to refute is the notion that she's unwilling to be confrontational.

Where to begin with the litany of canards and flat-out fallacies in Richard Grenell's recent post, "New Study Suggests US Ambassador Rice Isn't Engaging at the UN"? (Notably, Mr. Grenell is also the author of the time-tested HuffPost classic, "Why Obama Will Lose Today", November 4, 2008.)

My boss may be a lot of things, but battle-shy isn't one of them.

Korblau then goes on to explain the administration's policy of engagement at the UN, which he says is guided by "basic pragmatism." My favorite part of Kornblau's response, though, comes at the very end in which he calls out Grenell for transparent concern trolling:

"On the upside, I'd long thought of Grenell as a fairly predictable critic of the UN. It's weird to see him carping at my boss for allegedly being insufficiently ardent about the UN -- but I'm glad to see he's come around to our view of the importance of the place."

Well said!

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1. Another neocon who is afraid the narrative of his "strong leadership" is slipping away.

You are out of power you nutjob. No more narrative for you.