Confirm Bolton

From IBD:
Posted 7/24/2006

Diplomacy: John Bolton, made U.S. ambassador to the United Nations last year in a recess appointment after Senate Democrats wouldn't allow a vote, is proving to be one of our finest U.N. envoys.

Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick once described her job at the U.N. as refusing to let the U.S. wear a "kick me" sign at the organization. As the Senate this week again debates Bolton's nomination, it's hard to think of anyone more Kirkpatrick-esque. His achievements include:

• Beginning the long, hard task of "revolution of reform" — and refusing to accept Secretary-General Kofi Annan's less-than-adequate package of changes. As Bolton recently wrote, "The world is waking up to the glaring inefficiencies within the U.N. system."

He says the U.S. will look for other ways of working with friendly governments absent true U.N. reform.
• Looking at the relationship between funding mechanisms and performance — even suggesting that U.N. dues be replaced with voluntary contributions, which would let states choose which U.N. programs they wish to fund.

• Promoting a replacement for the corrupt U.N. Human Rights Commission — in which serial human rights violators get to sit in judgment on the world.

• Pushing the genocide in Darfur to the top of the Security Council agenda during America's council presidency this year, and blasting Annan for failing to use U.N. forces to stop atrocities there.

• Personally becoming one of the most effective — and visible — administration spokesmen on foreign policy. He never seems to turn down an invitation to talk. For instance, speaking to a hostile student crowd at Yale, his alma mater, he defended using the U.S. legal system to try soldiers accused of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

"I'm just curious; those of you who are hissing, who do you think will judge better than us?" he asked the audience.

Last time around, Senate Democrats pretended they were opposing Bolton because he had a bad temper. A Bolton subordinate complained he used hostile body language — hands on his hips — when talking to him.
In the case of Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who now promises a "bruising fight" against Bolton, the real reason was that Bolton had a track record of fighting the Castro regime in Cuba.

This time, Democrats will have to oppose Bolton on substance, and it won't be easy. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who last year called Bolton a "poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be" is now solidly in the pro-Bolton camp, as are all Senate Republicans.

A New York Times editorial last year strongly opposed his nomination because "Mr. Bolton expresses contempt for the U.N." and "tried to get a top CIA analyst who disagreed with him transferred."

Considering the incorrigible corruption of the U.N., the recent misbehavior of the CIA and the disrespect for national security shown by the Times, those reasons are as good as any to keep America's man at the U.N. right there where he's needed.