THE DEPARTURE of John Bolton marks the end of the imperial presidency of George Bush.
Like the resignation of Kansas Commissioner of Education Bob Corkins, Bolton’s decision not to linger was a recognition of a deep shift in the political landscape since the November election.
The parallels between Bolton and Corkins are interesting. Both were appointed not because of their fitness for the job, but because of their political ideologies.
Corkins had no real experience in education, but his political ideas agreed with those of the conservative then-majority on the Kansas Board of Education. He was hired — over the objections of the moderates on the board — as a kindred spirit rather than an administrator. As soon as it was clear that the moderates had regained control of the board, Corkins resigned rather than go through the painful process of being fired.
The president gave Bolton an interim appointment to the U.N. post after Democrats and some Republicans in the Senate blocked action on his nomination. Bolton’s often-expressed disdain for the United Nations, his lack of tact and his reputation as a bully appealed to ultraconservatives but disturbed everyone else. His interim appointment expires with the adjournment of this Congress and the return of a Democratic majority in the next Congress makes it clear that his nomination would never be ratified. He had a choice between resigning or continuing a fight that had become unwinnable.
It is not the first time that a slim majority in either the U.S. Congress or the Kansas Board of Education has been mistaken for an ironclad mandate for one narrow political viewpoint. It is also not the first time that voters have derailed those assumptions in the next election.
The defeat of the Republican Party in the November congressional elections — and Bolton’s resulting resignation — was the result of many factors. The public was revolted by congressional scandals, increasingly unhappy with the course of the fighting in Iraq and tired of real problems being addressed only with rhetoric.
These and other reasons could be summed up in one phrase: political arrogance.
It was arrogance that led Bush to put Bolton in the United Nations and arrogance that moved the board’s conservatives to hire Corkins to run the Kansas Department of Education. That arrogance assumed a mandate — and a continuation of power — that was an illusion.
Now the president, the Republicans in Congress and even the conservatives on the Kansas Board of Education must learn what Bolton and Corkins already know:
For all their power and perks, political office and political appointments are never anything more than highly paid temporary work and yesterday’s mandate quickly becomes today’s pink slip.