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Rumsfeld's Last Stand

By Sonia Smith
Posted Monday, Dec. 4, 2006, at 5:39 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Daniel of Venezuela News bids farewell to the blogosphere because of the election's disappointing outcome. "I just need to change my life, isolate myself from all the degradations that will come to Venezuela as the incompetence of Chavez will now have free rein to finish off historical monuments, National Parks, customs, culture, traditions. Now I need to nest, to bring out all the books that I have bought over the years and never had time to read, to start listening to music again as I forget about the news," he laments.

A.M. Mora y Leon at Publius Pundit thinks that Chávez's re-election portends badly for the people of Venezuela. "With a mandate this strong and the international community behind them, Chavez will aggressively do anything he pleases with the opposition. We will now see boat people, GULags, reeducation camps and firing squads." He also has photos from around Caracas on Election Day and a lengthy roundup of the Venezuelan blogosphere's reactions to the results.

Lawyer and author Glenn Greenwald takes a moment to reappraise Bush's goal of cultivating democracy. "If the leaders whom we are supposed to hate so much—even the ones who are The Terrorists—keep getting elected democratically, doesn't that negate the ostensible premise of our foreign policy—that America-loving allies will magically spring up all over the world where there are democracies and they will help us fight The Terrorists?"

Read more about Chávez's re-election. Alexandra Starr reported on the election for Slate here.

Farewell, bewhiskered one: The hirsute U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, tendered his resignation on Friday. Bush appointed Bolton during the August 2005 recess, after a Democratic filibuster prevented his selection during the regular session.

Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker outlines what became the final outrageous act during the tenure of the "the Man with the Iron Mustache." "Less than two weeks before the White House announced his resignation, Ambassador John Bolton's U.N. mission blocked an effort to celebrate the end of slavery in our hemisphere," Rood writes.

The liberal at pesky'apostrophe is gleeful for this "Chriskwanzakah miracle," writing, "Yes, this clears the way for Bush to recommend someone else who hates the U.N. and wishes they'd all die, and who has no social skills and zero skill in diplomacy."

Read more about Bolton's resignation.

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Sonia Smith, a former Slate intern, is a reporter at the Baton Rouge Advocate.
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