John Bolton's Original Sin

John Bolton has many friends in Washington, most notably George W. Bush. Others include Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and no small number of foreign policy experts in and out of government. Even a few journalists, mostly conservatives like Bill Kristol, are firmly on his side.

But over the years, John Bolton has committed the unforgivable act of being right, time after time. He was (and is) right about the tyranny of Fidel Castro, and about the incompetence and corruption of the United Nations. Going back a few more years, he was right about the nature of the Soviet Union in particular, and about communism in general. And in official Washington, the most serious sin doesn't involve infidelity to one's spouse, but to a political class that claims exclusive rights to determine the boundaries of acceptable debate. In this case, the same pro-status quo wonks who sought to thwart President Bush's move into Iraq, having failed in their efforts to kill the nomination of Condi Rice, are demanding the scalp of the next genuine threat to their policy of process for process's sake.

So John Bolton is now subjected to an assault on his character and trustworthiness -- his "temperament" -- for his past actions and for the threat that he'll take the administration's reform-minded message to Kofin Annan's self-serving, corrupt, sanctimonious U.N.

To be sure, his treatment of subordinates, from what we can tell, was at times somewhat -- somewhat -- abrasive. But these underlings, who've nursed their grudges for years, didn't lose their jobs, and they haven't been forced into early retirement or career changes. Bless their bleeding hearts, what would they have done had they had the misfortune to work in private industry, where insubordinate or obstinate staff are fired every day? What if, that is, they didn't have the ear of Douglas Jehl of the New York Times?

Jehl relies on the usual suspect for a NYT story -- an anonymous source with an axe to grind -- for his front page tale of Bolton's behind-the-scenes efforts to -- brace yourself -- disagree with the CIA! Yes, John Bolton has had the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to take issue with the wise men at Langley who missed, oh, you know, the fall of the Soviet Union, the massacre at Tiananmen Square, 9/11, WMDs in Iraq. Oh, and don't forget the rise of Castro, the nature of the Sandinistas, and other little trip-ups along their primrose path to near-obsolescence.

Here's Jehl's breathless introduction:

John R. Bolton clashed repeatedly with American intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 as he sought to deliver warnings about Syrian efforts to acquire unconventional weapons that the Central Intelligence Agency and other experts rejected as exaggerated, according to former intelligence officials.

Ultimately, the former intelligence officials said, most of what Mr. Bolton, then an under secretary of state, said publicly about Syria hewed to the limits on which the C.I.A. and other agencies had insisted. But they said that the prolonged and heated disputes over Mr. Bolton's proposed remarks were unusual within government, and that they reflected what one former senior official called a pattern in which Mr. Bolton sought to push his public assertions beyond the views endorsed by intelligence agencies.

Well, no wonder he's unqualified for office! He engaged in "prolonged and heated disputes" with members of the permanent bureaucracy at Langley -- and at Foggy Bottom, to boot. Never mind that his public pronouncements toed the line; they pushed it, too, and for that he must pay.

But wait: it gets worse. Much worse. I can hardly stand the tension.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has asked the C.I.A. to provide the committee with a copy of its objections to Mr. Bolton's prepared testimony in 2003.

Damn right, Joe. You get to the bottom of this mess, and do it soon. Because any man who questions the authority of the political class, which is inherently, and permanently, soft on dictatorships of the left, needs to be turned inside out.

Beyond the phoniness of this brow-furrowing and hand-wringing, the most obvious objection to these partisan attacks and paybacks is simple: the CIA is not now, and has never been, a policy-making branch of the federal government. It is not the place of CIA underlings, nor of their peers at State, to set the course for the nation's foreign policy. That job belongs to the elected administration and its appointees, which include John Bolton.

This morning's Washington papers, both the Post and the Times, do a better job on the Bolton story, because they actually report the news (at least this time) rather than manufacture it. The Post's headline captures the gist of their story: "Foreign Policy Disputes are Subtext in Battle over Bolton."

In public, the controversy over John R. Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador has focused on his handling of personnel issues and his managerial skills. But the first big battle of President Bush's second term also reflects long-standing tensions among Republicans over the thrust of U.S. foreign policy.

Allegations that Bolton has been abrasive have become a metaphor for the broader problem of the United States' image abroad, with Republicans who favor a less confrontational and unilateral approach seeing an opportunity to press their point of view. It is all the more striking at a time when the Bush administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has tried to rebuild relations with allies in Europe and Asia.

Bill Kristol, speaking to the Post, makes a key point:

"A lot of people are conservative and remain conservative when they enter government. But they don't try to reshape the bureaucracies to carry out their policies or the president's policies," said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. He noted that many of the people who have spoken out against Bolton to the committee are regarded as allies of Armitage and Powell, making the accusations in his view a form of "payback" for past policy disputes.

In that sense, Bolton is being punished, as all presidential nominees who run afoul of received wisdom are, because he's a proxy for the President. For that reason alone, the White House should work tirelessly to ensure his appointment to the U.N. post. A few phone calls to Senators might be in order.

The Washington Times's Bill Sammon assures us that this is what's happening:

"We are going to make the case from here on out that this is about reform -- or more of the same -- at the U.N.," a senior administration official told The Washington Times.

"Senators are realizing this is about the U.N.," added the official, who discussed Mr. Bolton on the condition of anonymity. "And they know the president is firmly behind him."

As I said yesterday (and as many others have pointed out), if the left and its proxies in the permanent bureaucracy want to defend the modern United Nations, let them try. Perhaps they can explain to the American people why John Bolton, and the policies of the President he follows, represent a greater threat to U.S. security than do all the vengeful minions throwing darts at their colleague. And while the President's men are explaining why the U.N. needs to be reformed, they might toss in a couple of lines about two other wrong-headed and increasingly useless bureaucracies that stand in the way of meaningful reform and national security: those at the State Department and the CIA.