This Financial Times Observer column is funny:

Senator Bill Frist, the US Senate Republican majority leader, yesterday held a press conference to urge Democrats to stop blocking the nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. Appearing with John McCain, the maverick Republican, Frist emphasised that it was crucial to fill quickly the UN position, which he said had remained vacant for 200 days since the resignation of John Danforth, the previous US ambassador.

In an attempt to reinforce the urgency of the UN position, Frist listed a series of significant events that had occurred in those 200 days.

"We have seen the orange revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the vote in Iraq, the vote in Palestine, the hope of opening the presidential elections in Egypt."

That just leads Observer to wonder whether the US should even bother sending an ambassador to the UN. Democracy seems to have fared better when the US chair has been empty.

But really, the FT observer is right. The just should not restrict this to the UN.

The U.S. will send car salesman Robert Tuttle as ambassador to the U.K. and Bush’s cousin and real estate expert Craig Stapleton to France.

With "diplomats" like these, one might be better off without.