Quiet, effective John Danforth offered reins as U.N. ambassador

[Judi Lynn]

Quiet, effective John Danforth offered reins as U.N. ambassador
Last Update: 6/4/2004 9:09:18 PM




WASHINGTON (AP) - By his own admission, John Danforth is capable of a "table-pounding, shouting, red in the face, profane rage." But that's a much less familiar side to the man nominated by President Bush as U.N. ambassador than the thoughtful, mild-mannered "St. Jack."

Painfully polite, privileged and old-fashioned, the former Missouri senator won admiration from fellow Republicans and opposing Democrats alike during his years in Washington.

Presidents of both parties have turned to him as a troubleshooter - he led a Clinton-era investigation of the Waco affair and President Bush named him special envoy for peace in Sudan.

An Episcopalian minister, he's known for being principled to the point of piety, a trait that earned him the St. Jack nickname, usually uttered with affection.
(snip/...)

http://www.wtev.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=11D2EF8B-AD80-423B-8034-9791466C6079



(I've always felt John Danforth seemed far more like a Democrat at heart, than a crappy Republican.)

[drfemoe]

1. but ..

"peace" in Sudan .. not there.. failed last assignment = promotion?
I'm probably clueless .. jus sayin ..

[cornermouse]

2. Danforth = Clarence Thomas

That pretty much sums it up for me.

[FarLeftRage]

11. Yes, my thought too

danforth is that worthless POS that sponsored clarence to the SCOTUS...

That is a crime in itself.

[sampsonblk]

12. Dm Right

No Danforth for me.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Actually there IS someone worse to have at that spot

It was _Bush's departing choice, Negroponte, the ghoul who facilitated so much hell passed on to Honduras from the Reagan administration:

From 1981 to 1985 Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras. During his tenure, he oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year. According to The New York Times, Negroponte was responsible for "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua." Critics say that during his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic.

Negroponte supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras and which critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site.

Records also show that a special intelligence unit of the Honduran armed forces, Battalion 3-16, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people, including US missionaries. Critics charge that Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with the Honduran military while lying to Congress.

In May 1982, a nun, Sister Laetitia Bordes, who had worked for ten years in El Salvador, went on a fact-finding delegation to Honduras to investigate the whereabouts of thirty Salvadoran nuns and women of faith who fled to Honduras in 1981 after Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination. Negroponte claimed the embassy knew nothing. But in a 1996 interview with the Baltimore Sun, Negroponte's predecessor, Jack Binns, said that a group of Salvadorans, among whom were the women Bordes had been looking for, were captured on April 22, 1981, and savagely tortured by the DNI, the Honduran Secret Police, and then later thrown out of helicopters alive.

In early 1984, two American mercenaries, Thomas Posey and Dana Parker, contacted Negroponte, stating they wanted to supply arms to the Contras after the U.S. Congress had banned further military aid. Documents show that Negroponte brought the two with a contact in the Honduran armed forces The operation was exposed nine months later, at which point the Reagan administration denied any US involvement, despite Negroponte's participation in the scheme. Other documents uncovered a plan of Negroponte and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush to funnel Contra aid money through the Honduran government.
(snip/...)

http://www.fact-index.com/j/jo/john_negroponte.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. Bush Wants Former Sen. John Danforth Of Missouri To Be Named New U.N. Amba

Bush Wants Former Sen. John Danforth Of Missouri To Be Named New U.N. Ambassador
Former State Attorney General Has Been Envoy To Sudan


By TOM RAUM
Published on 6/5/2004

Rome — President Bush is turning to former Missouri Sen. John Danforth to make the administration's Iraq case in the United Nations, choosing a Republican who was a Senate ally of his father and has been a troubleshooter for both Democratic and Republican presidents.

If confirmed by the Senate, as seems virtually certain, Danforth will succeed the current U.N. ambassador, John Negroponte, who will be moving to Iraq as Bush's ambassador to the new government there this summer.

Since 2001, Danforth has been Bush's special envoy to war-torn Sudan, where he has tried to mediate a peace agreement. He served in the Senate for 18 years and was on Bush's short list as a possible vice presidential choice in 2000.

The president made the announcement that he would nominate Danforth in a statement released while he was in Rome on a three-day European trip. The U.N.'s role in post-occupation Iraq will be a major topic in Bush's discussions with European leaders this weekend.
(snip/...)

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=574BBB19-0F45-48F1-B9A6-19154BEFEFAB

[Submariner]

4. Isn't Danforth the Jesus-freak who did the prayer seance

with Clarence and his wife during his Anita Hill lie-a-thon? If this is the scumbag I'm thinking of he needs to be rejected and shit-canned to the cesspool of history where he belongs.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Dunno!

My first dive into google says Thomas was involved originally with Danforth in this respect:

Born in tiny Pinpoint, Georgia, a small community near Savannah, Justice Thomas grew up in a Georgia that was segregated for most of his childhood years. Still, he excelled in his studies, attending Holy Cross College and Yale Law School. He accepted a position in Jefferson City, Missouri, where he practiced tax law as an Assistant Attorney General to John Danforth, then Attorney General of Missouri.

Danforth was impressed by the ability of Thomas, but Thomas left the state and took a position with the Monsanto Corporation, where he supervised much of the regulatory agency interaction for the large St. Louis-based company. In 1979 Danforth, who had been elected Senator, asked Thomas to join him in Washington D. C. During this time that Thomas got a broad range of experience, starting as Danforth's legislative assistance. His meteoric rise began in the Department of Education, moving to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in less than a year.
(snip/...)

http://www.ourgeorgiahistory.com/chronpop/2322v

I have lived in the Kansas City area and people around here had a lot more respect for him than people who first heard of him in connection to Clarence Thomas. Yikes.

I'll look around for more info.

He has had a very decent rep in every other way. _Bush isn't fit to shake his hand.

On edit:

However, in his defense, I'll bet it's hard for a man who was acquainted with the guy, as his elder, and his sponsor over a number of years, and was accustomed to being treated with respect and deference, as his senior and his employer, seeing nothing but the best from the guy, imagine seeing him ALSO as a man who could strut around and act like a total jackass to people he thought had absolutely no authority!

Common mistakes many people make, in assuming one "knows" another from a formal relationship, and also, as in Thomas's case, assuming people with less power really just have to grin and bear it.

Thomas, as his employee, and a person hoping to work up the chain, politically, UNDOUBTEDLY showed him only his best face.

{Many children are raised, seeing parents behave as stark raving maniacs when no one's around their own age, and smooth operators around their peers. A kid's damned lucky to have a mature, honest, and completely respectful, and self-respecting parent. Many aren't.)

[salin]

9. Wasn't he appointed as head of the investigation into Waco

and in the end wasn't his work on that viewed to be pretty even handed?

I always viewed his as I view Senator Lugar. Respectable - even to the point of bucking the party on principle from time (rare) to time, but with a more conservative world view.

Viewed the Thomas thing as a blind spot (the old... I mentored him - and now he is nominated for the Supreme Court!- ego sort of thing.)

[Judi Lynn]

10. I'm sure you've captured it. It's true.

His reputation was at least periperally involved, as he may have seen it.

Very glad for your insight.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. yup didn't you get the memo ...this is a holy war a "crusade" who better..

to represent jesusgeorge's mission? ...besides Boykin and he's busy kill muslims right now in the ME

[Rose Siding]

7. Effective?

History of Senator John Danforth as Envoy for Peace in Sudan
snip>
Senator Danforth undertook two missions to Sudan and the region (in November 2001 and January 2002), and one mission (in December 2001) to consult directly with key European partners (the UK, Norway, and Italy). more.........

http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/fs/10153.htm

He was also party to the confirmation of his protege, Clarence Thomas. And he handled the investigation of Waco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Danforth

[harper]

8. Oh Please

As a Missourian, I got pretty tired of all the Danforth propaganda. He's filthy rich...I think he's tied in to the Purina money. And its true, he's an ordained Episcopalian minister.

He always talked the moderate talk...you know...how awful it was that those nasty partisans were sullying the purity of the political process, and we should just all get along for the good of the country etc. But I noticed that after his agonizing and soul searching, he voted pretty much the same way as Jesse Helms on a lot of issues.

So don't be fooled into thinking he's practically a Democrat. I mean, he thought the world of Clarence Thomas, for Christ's sake!