I have to admit, sometimes the NYT editorials make me fuzzy inside. I had heard nothing about John Bolton's nomination besides that he faced "tough quesions" and was "expected to be confirmed". Here ya go.
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Questioning Mr. Bolton

The longer John Bolton's Senate hearing for the post of United Nations representative went on, the more outrageous it seemed that President Bush could have nominated a man who had made withering disdain for that world body the signature of his career in international affairs. Some fear that the aim is to scuttle the United Nations. It's more likely, but just as disturbing, that this is another example of Mr. Bush's rewarding loyalty rather than holding officials accountable for mistakes, especially those who helped build the case for war with Iraq.

Whatever the explanation, the hearing held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee only added reasons for denying the job to Mr. Bolton. It turned up a third incident (we already knew of two) in which Mr. Bolton tried to have an intelligence analyst punished for stopping him from making false claims about a weapons program in another nation, notably Cuba. Trying to tailor intelligence is enough to disqualify Mr. Bolton from this job. But the hearings also provided a detailed indictment of his views on the U.N., multilateral diplomacy and treaties.

Mr. Bolton tried, but failed, to explain away his long public record of attacking the United Nations. Senator Barbara Boxer dealt rather neatly with Mr. Bolton's lamentation that he was being misquoted by playing a videotape of a 1994 speech in which he said: "There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world - that's the United States - when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along."

Mr. Bolton tried to convince the senators that he was just being provocative with those remarks and that as U.N. ambassador, he would confine his utterances to official policy vetted by appropriate agencies, like the State Department. But much of the hearing focused on Mr. Bolton's contempt for that process, especially on his attempts to have a State Department intelligence analyst punished for stopping him from misrepresenting intelligence on Cuba.

Mr. Bolton wanted to give a speech saying that "the United States believes that Cuba has a developmental offensive biological warfare program and is providing assistance to other rogue state programs." That sounds scary, but it was not true. Cuba was not doing those things, and U.S. intelligence agencies did not think it was. But according to numerous accounts, Mr. Bolton became enraged when an analyst from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research pointed out the error and tried to have the analyst removed from his post.

Mr. Bolton's attempts to dodge accountability were almost comical. At one point, explaining a trip to the C.I.A. in which he tried to have an analyst for Latin America on the National Intelligence Council removed for a similar act, Mr. Bolton said he had gone there only to learn what the council does. The explanation was not remotely believable from someone with Mr. Bolton's background in national security. But for future reference, he might check www.cia.gov/nic, which has nifty theme music and an explanation of the council's job: preparing intelligence reports.

Carl Ford Jr., who led the State Department's intelligence office at the time and is now retired, flatly contradicted Mr. Bolton's claim that he hadn't tried to have the State Department analyst fired. His appearance was a personal risk, given the way the administration vilified another intelligence officer, Richard Clarke, who challenged its line on the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Ford called Mr. Bolton a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" and said the intimidation had had a lasting effect on his department.

Some of Mr. Bolton's Republican allies tried the "no harm, no foul" ploy, saying his misbehavior shouldn't count because he had ended up giving an accurate speech. Others said the issue was just a question of management style. But they are wrong. With America's credibility as low as it is, the last thing the nation needs is a United Nations envoy who tries to force intelligence into an ideological construct.>>>



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