The right bull for UN china shop - (solid historical facts about Bolton's strength; principles)

BOSTON.COM ^ | APRIL 27, 2005 | THOMAS M. BOYD

[CHARLITE]

MUCH CRITICISM has been leveled at the president's decision to nominate John Bolton as our next ambassador to the United Nations. While equally outspoken intellects like Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick were accepted as appropriate for their time, Bolton's bluntness and penchant for courting controversy in a diplomatic quiet zone like the UN, his critics say, make him ''uniquely ill-suited" to the UN's current demographics.

This argument misses the forest for the trees. As even Vice President Cheney noted last Friday, Bolton's historic views about the UN and how it functions, combined with his strong ties to President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, make him the right person for this job. ''If being occasionally tough and aggressive and bracing were a problem," the vice president added, ''then a lot of the United States Senate wouldn't qualify."

While it is certainly true that Bolton sometimes breaks china, it is also true that he carefully selects the pattern first. One example stands out.

In May 1991, while serving as assistant secretary of state for international organizations (which included the UN), Bolton was privately briefed by analysts on whether the United States had enough votes to reverse the UN's Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. He believed to his core that this resolution was an insult to the intelligence of the civilized world, and in that belief he was supported by the secretary of state himself, James Baker

[CyberAnt]

And .. Bolton's actions explain exactly why the dems don't want him there.

I'm stunned to find this in the Boston Globe.