The nomination of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is as dead as a doornail. As more allegations emerge and new evidence surfaces to corroborate the old allegations, the smart money says that the Bolton nomination will not survive through May 12, the date of the next Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote. But long after John Bolton has been sent back to his office in the State Department there will remain fascinating questions about this nomination:

1)    & nbsp; How on earth did the Bush administration nominate Bolton for this post in the first place? After all, the record of John Bolton constituted a perfect storm of disqualification from the get-go: 1) Prior to being nominated, he had already communicated to all who would listen his lack of respect for the UN as an entity. He told the Federalist Society in a colloquium that “the UN does not exist.” All that exists, he said defiantly, was “the United States, who will work along with other nations, if and when it is in our interest.” Just in case he had not shown his full contempt for the UN, Bolton went on to say that “if the UN building lost its top 10 floors, it wouldn’t make any difference.” 2) He has shown little respect for the intelligence apparatus that undergirds foreign policy. When Bolton’s desire to play up Cuba’s biological weapons capability was reined in by Christian Westermann, the intelligence analyst assigned to Cuba, Bolton was indignant, telling Westermann’s supervisor, Thomas Fingar, that “he wasn't going to be told what he could say by a midlevel INR (Intelligence Research) munchkin analyst." 3) His approach to those less powerful, both personally and internationally, has consistently been authoritarian and top-down, making him a poor choice to work with the member nations of the UN. One of the best lines of Bolton’s Foreign Relations Committee hearing, came  from ranking member Joe Biden in his opening remarks to Bolton and the committee:  

“Mr. Bolton, some of your supporters have compared your going to the UN to Nixon going to China; my concern is that you will be more like a bull in a china shop!”

      Biden hit the nail directly on the head: How did someone so dramatically wrong for a post wind up in this position? Did Bush and Condi really think that Bolton was an appropriate choice as UN Ambassador? It seems unlikely, especially at this point in history, when our relationship with the UN is still reeling from Colin Powell’s bogus case for war in Iraq. Or is it more plausible to think that Bolton’s nomination was a way of “kicking him upstairs,” getting him out of the policy making wing of the State Department, and out of Condi’s hair? I have to believe that the Bolton nomination was the White House’s (and the State Department's) way of ridding itself of a nuisance, particularly since Bolton’s reputation for malice and intimidation was well known.

    It is a measure of how accepting we have become of political spin, that we would even for a moment, take seriously the idea that an individual who is completely hostile to an organization is the right person to reform it. Yes, a vegetarian might have some good ideas on how to reform McDonalds; an atheist might have some good ideas about how to reform the Catholic Church. But no one would ever consider putting such individuals in charge of the reform effort, for two reasons. First, because their views would be incompatible with the very mission of those organizations; second, because they would never gain the trust of the members of those organizations. My best guess is that the administration was arrogant and sloppy with this nomination, didn’t thoroughly vet the nominee, and didn’t anticipate the array of charges that would come not from Democrats, but from Republicans who had worked with him. Now Bush finds himself in a morass that he can’t get out of.

2)    & nbsp; How has Bolton’s nomination survived this far, given that he lied to the Foreign Relations Committee?  Regardless of what one thinks about Bolton’s management style, fibbing under oath to a Senate committee should lead to one’s nomination being pulled immediately. Clearly Bolton was at the very least shading the truth, when he pooh-poohed the idea that he had tried to get intelligence agent Westermann fired: "There is nothing there, there, and I would put it all out on the public record - all of it." This despite the fact that everyone involved in the episode, from Carl Ford Jr., the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, to Thomas Fingar, who was Ford’s deputy, to Westermann himself, have given sworn testimony that contradicts Bolton. The facts seem clear: Bolton tried to have Westermann removed from his job. 

     Recently, a more obvious fib has come to light that may be harder to wiggle out of. In 2003, just before the beginning of international talks over North Korea’s nuclear capability, Bolton gave a speech savaging Kim Jong Il. The U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Thomas Hubbard, twice asked Bolton to change the tone and language of his speech, to no avail. When he was asked by the Senate Committee what diplomatic purpose was served by the speech, Bolton responded:

 "I can tell you what our ambassador to South Korea, Tom Hubbard, said after the speech. He said, "Thanks a lot for that speech, John. It'll help us a lot out here.'"

Unfortunately for Bolton, Hubbard has since testified to the committee that he made no such approving remarks to Bolton, before or after the speech, and added the Bolton had hung up on him and refused to attend a dinner around that same time. Bolton’s statement can only be seen as a self-serving, bald-faced lie, one which was contradicted not by a partisan Democrat, but a  Bush Republican appointee. It is ironic that it is the Republicans with whom Bolton worked, like Carl Ford and Thomas Hubbard—not to mention Colin Powell--who have administered the deepest wounds to Bolton.

3)    & nbsp; Why hasn’t George W. Bush himself taken a hit for this nomination? After all, Bolton now is simply a man playing a waiting game, twisting in the wind, struggling to salvage something of his reputation. It is the President who put him in that position by making such a foolish nomination. Further, this episode can hardly be said to be cost free for the United States. Member countries of the United Nations have been following this soap opera in astonishment, wondering why with so many international issues at stake, Bush would choose to stick his thumb in the UN’s eye by sending John Bolton there. I can understand why Senate Democrats have held their fire against the president; they don’t want to be seen as engaging in partisan piling on. However, that is precisely where the likes of Howard Dean comes in. Isn’t tough talk Dean’s stock in trade? The head of the Democratic National Committee should be beating this issue like a drum, focusing on the national embarrassment produced by this nomination.

    And to the dismay of the damage-control folks in the White House, this mess is going to get worse before it gets better. The most recent allegation comes from attorney Laura Finney, who worked with Bolton in the early 80’s at USAID, and at the time was working on the UN Development Program. Bolton pressed Finney in 1982 to try to get UN delegates to try to weaken World Health Organization rules on how infant formula could be marketed in the developing world. Finney refused Bolton’s request, telling him that it was well known that infant formula could be deadly in the developing world, because mothers used it with tainted water. In her letter to Senater Barbara Boxer, Finney wrote that Bolton

"shouted that Nestle was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan….He yelled that if I didn't obey him, he would fire me….I said I could not live with myself if even one baby died because of something I did. . . . He screamed that I was fired."

Bolton was not able to fire her, Finney wrote, but did move her to a basement office with no windows. One suspects that the number of ugly anecdotes concerning John Bolton is only limited by the amount of time one has to collect them.    & nbsp;    & nbsp;   &n bsp;  

     Finally, while I am assigning blame in this fiasco, let me say a few words about moderate Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the man originally thought to have the deciding vote on the Foreign Relations Committee. Chafee, who could smell the stench of this nomination from day one, has shown little if any courage during this saga. Indeed up until the time that the first committee vote was to be taken, Chafee--no profile in courage--had done little beyond offering mealy-mouthed, half-hearted statements in support of Bolton. It was only when Republican Senator George Voinovich spoke up and said that he could not support this nominee, thereby giving Chafee the political cover that he needed, that Chafee discovered some backbone. Voinovich is now being pilloried by his own party, who charge that since Voinovich had not attended many of the hearings before that, his opinion shouldn’t count. Apparently Voinovich’s critics assume that he doesn’t get C-SPAN, read the newspaper, talk with other committee members, or read memos prepared by his staff, either.

    One can only hope that this episode will end with an appropriate, capable, consensus choice for ambassador, with the White House properly chastened, and with the Democrats feeling their oats at having mustered some cojones.