John Bolton

To hear Democrats talk, John Bolton is the least qualified individual in the country to represent the U.S. at the UN.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in her March 7, 2005, remarks announcing the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, presents a very different view.

She said:

Now, more than ever, the UN must play a critical role as it strives to fulfill the dreams and hopes and aspirations of its original promise to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith and fundamental human rights and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. President Bush has sent our most skilled and experienced diplomats to represent the United States at the UN. Today, I am honored to continue that tradition by announcing that President Bush intends to nominate John Bolton to be our next Ambassador to the United Nations.

The President and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done. He is a tough-minded diplomat, he has a strong record of success and he has a proven track record of effective multilateralism. For the past four years John has served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. In that position, John has held primary responsibility for the issue that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has identified as one of our most crucial challenges to international peace and security: stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

John helped build a coalition of more than 60 countries to help combat the spread of WMD through the President's Proliferation Security Initiative. John played a key diplomatic role in our sensitive negotiations with Libya when that nation made the wise choice to give up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. And John was the chief negotiator of the Treaty of Moscow, which was signed by Presidents Putin and Bush to reduce nuclear warheads by two-thirds.

In President George H.W. Bush's Administration, John served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations and worked on several key diplomatic initiatives with the UN, including work on UN reform and work on the repayment of arrearages and assessments. In 1991, John was the principal architect behind the initiative that finally led the United Nations General Assembly to repeal the notorious resolution that equated Zionism and racism.

And few may remember this, but John worked between 1997 and 2000 as an assistant to former Secretary James Baker in his capacity as the Secretary General's personal envoy to the Western Sahara. John did this work pro bono. If few Americans have direct experience working for the United Nations, I'm confident that fewer still have gained that experience on their own nickel. Through history, some of our best ambassadors have been those with the strongest voices, ambassadors like Jean Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

John Bolton is personally committed to the future success of the United Nations and he will be a strong voice for reform at a time when the United Nations has begun to reform itself to help meet the challenging agenda before the international community. John will also help to build a broader base of support here in the United Nations for the UN -- in the United States for the UN and its mission. As Secretary General Annan has said, "U.S. support the UN is critical to the success of this institution." The United States will continue to do its part.
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Contrast this with Sen. Joe Biden's opinion.

Biden, the panel's ranking Democrat, thinks that Bolton's record would undercut any attempt by the United States to warn the United Nations of Iran's or North Korea's suspected weapons programs.

He said, "This is a big deal, guys and ladies. I believe that this appointment is damaging to our national interests."

I agree with Biden on the "big deal" part.

We need someone with a strong voice to represent the U.S. at the UN. This is not a time for flip-floppy, nuanced talk.

Like the Dems, liberal news outlets prefer spineless appeaser-style diplomacy and continue to campaign against Bolton.

For example, The San Francisco Chronicle focuses on the "Bolton is a bully" angle.

In caustic and unusually personal testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Carl W. Ford Jr., the former director of intelligence and research at the State Department, said John Bolton was a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" who "abuses his authority with little people," and an ill-suited nominee.

Ford's gruff, direct and sometimes off-color manner took some senators aback, as when he described Bolton's dressing-down of Westermann, saying that "he reamed him a new one."

It was hardly the kind of language usually heard from diplomats appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it raised eyebrows, but also chuckles, among the senators, their aides and the rows of spectators.

"There are a lot of screamers that work in government," Ford said. "But you don't pull somebody so low down the bureaucracy that they are completely defenseless. It's an 800-pound gorilla devouring a banana."

...Democrats on the committee hoped that Ford's testimony would help persuade Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., to vote against the nomination. Chafee is seen as the panel's only Republican who might vote against Bolton and block the nomination from getting to the full Senate, where the GOP holds a 55-45 edge.

It appears that the Dems won't get their wish.

Chafee and other Republicans noted that although Ford called Bolton a "serial abuser" of people under him, he could provide first-hand knowledge of only this one instance and that, in the end, no one was removed from office because of the dispute. In addition, they noted, Bolton ultimately backed off and used Westermann's words instead of his own.

My question: Is our national interest being served by tearing down the man who will represent the U.S. at the UN?

Of course not.

This hearing has been stuffed with political grandstanding and personal axe-grinding. It seems irresponsible to do a hatchet job on our next ambassador to the UN.

The Democrats are clearly about scoring political points, not only at Bolton's expense, but at the expense of our national interest.