Horse is to Carriage as Politician is to Bureaucrat

I like Tom Friedman, but I have to disagree with this portion of his column this week on the Bolton appointment (saying that Bolton might improve the UN bureaucracy, but wouldn't work well to create support for the US):

"In short, I don't much care how the U.N. works as a bureaucracy; I care about how often it can be enlisted to support, endorse and amplify U.S. power. That is what serves our national interest. "

What Tom misses is that a politician is nothing without a bureaucracy to lead, or rather, a politician without a bureaucracy to lead, or aspire to lead, is a demagogue. Consider Arafat, who never had an effective bureaucracy in the Palestinian Authority. In the long run, if the UN doesn't work, its moral authority vanishes, and the value of its support becomes nil. The UN doesn't have to be a world government, but it has to be effective at what it tries to do.

A bureaucracy, like a carriage, both empowers and constrains the politician. It permits the victorious politician to deliver on his promises, thus enforcing accountability. It keeps the politician from galloping cross country in pursuit of every will o'wisp, thereby promoting stability. So the politician needs the bureaucracy.

Likewise, the bureaucrat needs the politician. A problem with the UN is that it doesn't have enough politics and enough effective bureaucracy. Without campaigns and elections, the balance between the UN civil service and politicians is skewed, so the bureaucracy loses its power. To change metaphors, without the exercise of doing things, and of changing course at the direction of its political leaders, a bureaucracy becomes flabby and self-absorbed.

I've no affection for Bolton, but if his appointment would shoot down the black helicopter myths, I'd applaud it.