Who's Afraid of John Bolton?

It would seem that the usual suspects, dems/leftists/one worlders, are scared to death of John Bolton. There are also a few hidden agandas here. OpinionJournal lays out a few of these hidden agandas in its Review & Outlook commentary.

Or consider the unnamed State Department official who recently told Newsweek that in November 2003, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had complained personally to Mr. Powell that his Undersecretary was taking too tough a line on Iran's nuclear weapons program. "Get a different view of [the Iranian problem]," Mr. Powell is reported to have told the aide. "Bolton is being too tough." Remember that at the time, Britain, along with France and Germany, had recently negotiated a nuclear-freeze deal with Iran, a deal Iran violated within months. (For the record, Mr. Straw denies Newsweek's report.)

And then there is Thomas Hubbard, the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, who objected to portions of a speech Mr. Bolton delivered in Seoul in which the Undersecretary called North Korea a "hellish nightmare" ruled by a "tyrannical dictator." Mr. Hubbard does not formally oppose Mr. Bolton's nomination, but he has let it be known that he considered the speech "counterproductive" and overly "antagonistic."

So we have an "unnamed" source making a claim that is being denied. How convenient. Do you think the dems on the committee will name this source? Highly unlikely. Yet, they want to use this now denied information against Bolton. So much for truth. Bolton called North Korea exactly what it is. Now the uproar from the mamby pamby diplomats. Maybe they are afraid that Bolton hurt "The Leader's" feelings?

This was the consensus that held, or holds, that North Korea and Iran can be bribed away from their nuclear ambitions, that democracy in the Arab world was impossible and probably undesirable, that fighting terrorism merely encourages more terrorism, that countries such as Syria pose no significant threat to U.S. national security, that the U.N. alone confers moral legitimacy on a foreign-policy objective, and that support for Israel explains Islamic hostility to the U.S. Above all, in this view, the job of appointed officials such as Mr. Bolton is to reside benignly in their offices at State while the permanent foreign service bureaucracy goes about applying establishment prescriptions.

John Bolton would have none of this. For this, he has been smeared by his partisan critics and maligned, often anonymously, by his former colleagues. But he has also been vindicated by events, and by his accomplishments, in the last four years. If this makes Mr. Bolton unconfirmable in the eyes of the Senate, then talented Americans have no place in our government.

Exactly right. - Sailor