From today's Opinion Journal column, Who's Afraid of John Bolton:
None of this, however, quite explains the depth of hostility that Mr. Bolton inspires. The deeper explanation is that he set out to explode the consensus views of the foreign-policy establishment--and succeeded.
This was the consensus that held, or holds, that North Korea and Iran can be bribed away from their nuclear ambitions, that democracy in the Arab world was impossible and probably undesirable, that fighting terrorism merely encourages more terrorism, that countries such as Syria pose no significant threat to U.S. national security, that the U.N. alone confers moral legitimacy on a foreign-policy objective, and that support for Israel explains Islamic hostility to the U.S. Above all, in this view, the job of appointed officials such as Mr. Bolton is to reside benignly in their offices at State while the permanent foreign service bureaucracy goes about applying establishment prescriptions.
Bingo!
We need someone to rock the boat. The boat has been sinking for too many years! Bolton is the right man for the job. And the liboloons hate it.
Posted by: Raven | April 28, 2005 at 03:50 PM
The President gave no sign of backing off of the Bolton nomination at his news conference last night, so maybe there's room for hope. Perhaps we should have a little faith in Dr. Frist.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | April 29, 2005 at 06:46 AM
Bolton is clearly a step in the right direction. The Bolton nomination is a referendum of the whole Bush approach – as that WSJ quote shows. If Bush backs down he backs away from his whole foreign policy approach.
Of course, I don’t think the U.N. can be reformed. It’s a flawed concept - a collection of hateful envious dictatorships. It has a pathetic track record. I particularly single out Kofi Annan – not for the oil-for-food scandal – but for mush worse (see my blog).
However, if we’re going to play the U.N. game, Bolton is our Babe Ruth. Let him step up to the plate and hit a few.
Jason Pappas
http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Jason Pappas | April 29, 2005 at 09:47 AM