[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Bolton Should Step Aside

[Michael Butler]

latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bolton20apr20.story
EDITORIAL
Bolton Should Step Aside

April 20, 2005

President Bush's nomination of John Bolton to become United Nations
ambassador began as an embarrassment and is ending as a disgrace. The Senate
Foreign Relations Committee was right to delay a scheduled vote and resist
being railroaded by the administration into approving him.

Bolton's infantile crack that it would make no difference if the U.N. lost
its top 10 floors already testified to his unfitness to serve as the United
States' diplomat to the world. It may have been Bush's right to appoint
someone provocative yet capable. But the revelations that have emerged over
the past weeks in the Senate call into question Bolton's basic ability to do
the job.

On issue after issue, whether North Korea or Iraq, Bolton has wielded a
wrecking ball. It might be possible to wave off one allegation of the misuse
of intelligence ‹ infighting always takes place in the government
bureaucracy ‹ but Bolton appears to have willfully and systematically
suppressed and misused classified information, including bullying civil
service officials who dared to challenge his apocalyptic assessments of
North Korean, Iraqi and Cuban weapons programs. Former CIA Deputy Director
John McLaughlin apparently had to intervene to protect a Latin American
analyst from Bolton's wrath; Carl W. Ford Jr., the State Department's former
assistant secretary of intelligence and research ‹ the only government
bureau to get it right on Iraq ‹ describes him as a "serial abuser." And
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is rightly inquiring about Bolton's unusual
request to look at National Security Administration intercepts and why he
asked for the identities of analysts. Why indeed?

The best case that can be made for Bolton is that he's no worse than other
neoconservative officials in the Pentagon who manipulated intelligence about
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But Bolton also appears to have a mean
streak, a pattern of arrogant recklessness that bodes ill for this
assignment. If there is anyone in the U.S. government who needs to be
infinitely patient, it's the ambassador at the U.N., who must constantly
engage representatives of dozens of nations ‹ diplomats Bolton would no
doubt find infinitely annoying. Not only does he lack the temperament for
the job, it's hard to imagine why he'd want it.

Bolton surely can't want the job now, with the world on notice that even the
Republican Senate has its misgivings about his nomination. Bush may find it
hard to back down, so Bolton should do him and his country a favor and step
aside. Maybe there is a consolation prize the White House could offer him.
How about ambassador to France?

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