Confirmation of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, 2006 / Bolton should be confirmed
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Position: Bolton should be confirmed
This position addresses the topic Confirmation of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, 2006.
For this position
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"As his critics would have it, Mr. Bolton's mission to the U.N. was supposed to be an act of diplomatic sabotage by the Administration. Instead, his tenure has been among the most constructive of any U.S. ambassador since Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan." | 
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From Mr. Diplomacy, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board (The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2006) (view)
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"Bolton is the most qualified, most capable fellow the U.S. has ever sent to the UN in large part because he is willing to defend American interests against our fiercest antagonists and refuses to be used as a doormat for the international riff-raff in Turtle Bay." |
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From Arianna in a Huff Over John Bolton, by Thomas P. Kilgannon (Human Events, September 5, 2006) (view)
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"If anything confirms the vapidity of Senate Democrats' views of Bolton and the U.N., it is the huge ovations that U.N. delegates lavished on ChÁvez and Ahmadinejad – two madmen thugs." |
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From A U.N. eye-opener, by The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board (The San Diego Union-Tribune, September 27, 2006) (view)
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"With Chafee's bizarre (but perhaps temporary) defection, Bolton's nomination is again in trouble. It shouldn't be. And you only have to listen to Voinovich to know why." |
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"A seat on the Security Council would give Chavez an international platform to spew his anti-American rhetoric - much as he used his address to the General Assembly last month to attack President Bush. Thanks to Bolton, that likely won't happen. This reminds us that the Senate still needs to confirm the ambassador - and it needs to do so by the end of the year." |
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From Bolton Corrals El Loco, by New York Post editorial board (New York Post, October 19, 2006) (view)
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"Many of Mr. Bolton's former critics concede now that he has "no horns." He's a lot better than that. He offers insight with a moderate tone, and works diligently with other countries in public and behind the scenes to focus on the serious problems, such as the nuclear-weapons programs in North Korea and Iran and the deepening human-rights catastrophe in Darfur." |
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"Bolton has done an exemplary job at the U.N. He succeeded in getting resolutions to impose sanctions on North Korea; he brokered a Security Council resolution to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon." |
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From Confirm Bolton for U.N. post, by Chicago Sun-Times editorial board (Chicago Sun-Times, November 14, 2006) (view)
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"Bolton has played the role of a proper diplomat, but he has also been blunt about the tremendous need for UN reform in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal and the world body's continued coddling of police states on agencies such as the Commission on Human Rights." |
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From Confirm John Bolton, by Chicago Tribune editorial board (Chicago Tribune, November 14, 2006) (view)
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"Democrats have an obligation to demonstrate conclusively to America's enemies that they don't have allies on Capitol Hill. By moving so swiftly to torpedo John Bolton, they've sent precisely the opposite signal." |
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From Are Dems Bolton Already?, by New York Post editorial board (New York Post, November 13, 2006) (view)
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"It would require no small measure of humility for Democrats to acknowledge that Bolton was a perfectly acceptable and qualified candidate to be U.N. ambassador, after their initial warnings of impending doom. But confirming Bolton would be a gesture of conciliation that would have the added benefit of being the right thing to do for the country." |
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From Bolton nomination is a test for Dems, by Boston Herald editorial board (Boston Herald, November 13, 2006) (view)
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"Bolton has a superb record and to deny him would send a dreadful message to the world that the president is not in charge of U.S. foreign policy. Even uglier, it would be doing the bidding of Kofi Annan and the secretary-general's enforcer Mark Malloch Brown, who has cozied up to the Democrats in the hope of dumping Bolton." |
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From Keep John Bolton at the United Nations, by New York Daily News editorial board (New York Daily News, July 31, 2006) (view)
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"Some critics have argued that Mr. Bolton is better in his public role as advocate than in his behind-the-scenes role as conciliator. But at this point in history, the United States needs a public advocate who can further its case in the court of public opinion. No one does that better than John Bolton." |
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From A public advocate for the United States, by Alan Dershowitz (The Washington Times, July 28, 2006) (view)
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"Bolton has that voice. No shrinking violet, he's just the type of no-nonsense, "get 'er done" diplomat Washington needs in New York right now, fighting for American interests in the divided and increasingly impotent U.N. Security Council." |
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"Mr. Bolton has advocated much-needed management reforms in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal; he has rightly shunned the new Human Rights Council as a tool of human-rights abusers, like Cuba and Libya, while simultaneously calling attention to genuine human-rights crises, like Darfur -- over which he sharply criticized U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in February; and he remains a lonely advocate for Israel in a forum famously hostile to the U.S. ally." |
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From Confirm Bolton, by The Washington Times editorial board (The Washington Times, July 26, 2006) (view)
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"For me or my colleagues in the Senate to now question a possible renomination would jeopardize our influence in the United Nations and encourage those who oppose the United States to make Bolton the issue, thereby undermining our policies and agenda." |
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"Perhaps the best reason to support John Bolton's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is that his approach to foreign policy is radically different from John Kerry's, as shown by their exchange during Mr. Bolton's confirmation hearings. It is a shame anyone missed this delicious slap-down." |
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"So, will Democrats with broader ambitions -- such as Sen. Hillary Clinton -- now go through the exercise of a purely partisan filibuster to deprive the United States of a representative who, according to his U.N. colleagues, has been calm, firm, forthright and effective?" |
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From John Bolton deserves to remain U.N. envoy, by Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board (Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 4, 2006) (view)
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"Sadly, these days the situation is radically different. The Loyal Opposition will seize any opportunity to try and derail a president from the other party." |
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From Joe Lieberman For Senate In Connecticut; John Bolton For The UN, by The Jewish Press editorial board (The Jewish Press, August 2, 2006) (view)
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"Yet, given the timing, Mr. Bolton deserves confirmation. He's served well enough, and, amid all the wars and talk of wars, for the Senate to balk would send a terrible signal to the world." |
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From Stick With Bolton: America could use stability at the U.N., by The Dallas Morning News editorial board (The Dallas Morning News, August 2, 2006) (view)
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"Indeed, most of the criticism aimed at Bolton has nothing to do with him. More than anything else, it represents an effort to set the political stage for the upcoming midterm congressional elections in November." |
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From A defeat for Bolton could undercut US policy, by Thomas M. Boyd (The Boston Globe, August 1, 2006) (view)
Against this position
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"The consequences have been U.S. estrangement from its allies, its relegation to the sidelines of negotiations, the virtual disappearance of U.S. diplomats from the mid-level discussion fora where ideas are gestated, and its humiliating isolation in the 170 to 4 vote to create the new U.N. Human Rights Council." |
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From John Bolton is a terrible representative of the United States, by Larry Finkelstein, Jeffrey Laurenti (New Hampshire Union Leader, September 4, 2006) (view)
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"Bolton, by temperament and conviction, is far too dismissive of the results that can be achieved by this kind of traditional diplomacy. That is what makes him the wrong man for the job. America desperately needs to repair the alliances and relationships damaged by the shoot-from-the-hip diplomacy of the Bush first term." |
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From Still the Wrong Man for the U.N., by The New York Times editorial board (The New York Times, July 31, 2006) (view)
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"U.N. members see American reform proposals not as ways to improve the organization but as hidden attempts to enhance U.S. power. This helps explain why Bolton has largely failed to achieve his stated goals — or much of anything else." |
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From Rejecting Bolton's Sledgehammer Diplomacy, by Los Angeles Times editorial board (Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2006) (view)
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"Democrats looking for a clear message on national security cannot afford to miss this opportunity to block the nomination of a man who personifies the failed Bush foreign policy. After all, it shouldn't be beyond our capacity to have a UN ambassador who is both pro-Israel and capable of fostering good relations with the rest of our allies while keeping Iraq on his front burner." |
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From He's Baaaack: John Bolton ... Still Bad for America, by Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post, August 31, 2006) (view)
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"Has it occurred to the geniuses running foreign policy for the Bush administration that the world isn't a Fox News show -- that rude spokespeople do not serve American interests?" |
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Mixed on this position
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"Rather than building support at the United Nations, Mr. Bolton has more often solidified the anti-American coalition. We continue to believe that the president is entitled to the ambassador of his choosing, provided that the nominee is competent and honest. But we can't explain Mr. Voinovich's change of mind, nor why Mr. Bush supposes that this polarizing envoy advances U.S. interests." |
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From John Bolton, Multilateralist?, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, July 27, 2006) (view)
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"Bush could, as Democrats call for, replace Bolton with someone with a more collegial style. But Bolton is the instrument of a U.S. foreign policy doctrine that sees multilateralism as merely one option, to be used only when it serves U.S. interests. Absent a change in the fundamental U.S. approach to the United Nations, changing ambassadors might make little difference." |
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From Diplomacy at the U.N., by The Sacramento Bee editorial board (The Sacramento Bee, August 4, 2006) (view)