[CC] LA Times - 'Bolton Should Step Aside' (fwd)

[Alan Sondheim]

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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:35:36 -0400 (EDT)
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Subject: LA Times - 'Bolton Should Step Aside'

Los Angeles Times
April 20, 2005

EDITORIAL

Bolton Should Step Aside

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?

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bolton20apr20,0,1738794.story
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