Former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton bashes Obama on Libya

The Los Angeles Times ^ | March 18, 2011 | Maeve Reston

[2ndDivisionVet]

John R. Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations who is weighing a presidential run in 2012, accused President Obama on Friday of failing to address threats to U.S. national security and called the administration's approach to the crisis in Libya "pathetic."

Hours after the president warned that the United Nations was ready to launch a military strike to defend the Libyan people if their leader Moammar Kadafi did not halt his attacks on civilians and pull back from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and three other cities, Bolton cast the president as indecisive, inconsistent and uninterested in foreign policy.

Speaking on the opening night of the state Republican Party convention in Sacramento, Bolton told fellow party members that had he been in charge, he would have moved far more swiftly and would have unilaterally declared a no-fly zone in Libya during the early stage of the crisis.

"Had we acted in those early days, we could have tipped the balance conclusively against Kadafi and this whole thing might be over," Bolton told hundreds of delegates over dinner in the ballroom of a downtown hotel. "Instead the president dithered, and he watched, and he waited, and he temporized."

"In the course of his ruminations, he said Kadafi has got to go — and then he still didn't do anything about it — thus exposing the United States to an enormous credibility problem with our friends and allies, as well as our adversaries."

In recent days, the United States and its allies at the United Nations have ratcheted up pressure on Kadafi to leave power. The U.N. Security Council agreed Thursday to use "all necessary measures" to protect the Libyan people, clearing the way for military strikes on Libyan aircraft and ground forces.....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Did you forget Yassir Arafat?

[Rembrandt]

“John Bolton would make a great SecState or SecDef but he lacks the charisma for an Executive post. I love the guy.

---

‘And there’s the rub if you’re a conservative. The libs have just about won the wussification of American men and the turning of American women into dithering, addle-brained school girls.

When charisma is put ahead of intelligence, right-mindedness and abilities, we have turned the presidency into a parody of a beauty contest with no regard for anything of real value.’ “

You misunderstood my point. I’m not concerned about Conservatives - I believe Conservatives mostly know what the lay of the land is. The charisma issue comes into play when Independents are considered. Independents waffle in the slightest breeze and Bolton (bless his heart) isn’t a sweet and fuzzy guy so I don’t think he’d garner the necessary Independent votes. A candidate can’t win the Presidency without winning the majority of the Independents.

[trebb]

You misunderstood my point. I’m not concerned about Conservatives - I believe Conservatives mostly know what the lay of the land is. The charisma issue comes into play when Independents are considered. Independents waffle in the slightest breeze and Bolton (bless his heart) isn’t a sweet and fuzzy guy so I don’t think he’d garner the necessary Independent votes. A candidate can’t win the Presidency without winning the majority of the Independents.

I got the point - I wasn't clear that I was speaking in generalities and not at you. While I've seen some conservatives use charisma as a judging point, the problem is that it has become such a "requirement" by the idiot voters, that the best and the brightest might as well not exist if they ain't pretty and charming too. Conservatives are having their field shortened and defined because of it, and that is worrisome.