From Now On

A in-depth Study on Slate of the John Bolton Affair and why we should have little sympathy for the troubles he's having in confirmation [he did it to himself over the years] and how, perhaps, we should consider our criticisms of Bolton more closely :

Nominating John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations is a little like nominating Jeffrey Dahmer for surgeon general. You might think that Bolton's manifest antipathy toward the U.N. would have been enough to sink his nomination. But Bolton's supporters have turned the issue around. They say that the problem isn't U.N. haters, but swooning U.N. lovers, people who would gladly surrender American sovereignty to creeping global governance—and that Bolton is just the hard-nosed guardian of American interests to confront this peril.

New York Times columnist David Brooks says Bolton will stand steadfastly against "mushy international organizations" that "liberate the barbaric and handcuff the civilized," against "meetings of unelected elites, of technocrats who make decisions in secret," and against a "global governance" that "inevitably devolves into corruption." This "vaporous global-governance notion is a dangerous illusion," Brooks writes, and Bolton will help puncture it.

But you don't have to be a global-governance visionary, or even a big U.N. fan, to oppose Bolton's nomination. Common-sense patriotism—the intelligent championing of national interest—will do. Hence the many Republican moderates who are uncomfortable with this nomination. And if there's a sense in which ardent U.N. aficionados are a problem, it's not because they're on the verge of squashing America's sovereignty, but because sometimes, in their enthusiasm, they give rhetorical ammunition to the David Brookses of the world.

Consider this much-viewed anti-Bolton video. To be sure, it is in many ways effective and on balance does Bolton more harm than good. When, early in the video, you see Bolton animatedly envision the partial destruction of U.N. headquarters, you do have to wonder whether that is the best place for him to hang his hat. And about 1:20 into the video, when Bolton gets really worked up, a hint of lunacy does creep into the picture.

Still, at least some of what Bolton says in the video about pursuing America's national interest could strike a liberal or centrist internationalist as technically defensible. And since the unspoken premise of the video is that Bolton's comments are self-evidently wrongheaded, some viewers may conclude that Bolton opponents reject the vigorous pursuit of American interests.

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Now Bolton, in having to scramble desperately to secure confirmation, is paying for all the enemies he's made in Washington. To some extent America is in the same position. Under President Bush it has made more enemies than it had to, because his foreign policy has been counterproductively unilateralist and gratuitously antagonistic. But there is hope that Bush has turned over a new leaf. He vowed to nurture alliances in his second term, and his inaugural address tied America's welfare to the welfare of people abroad.

Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., says the "character assassination" of Bolton is intended to provide a "smokescreen" for the real aim of Bolton opponents—opposition to Bush's foreign policy. But if Bush is telling the truth about his hopes for multilateral cooperation, Bolton won't serve Bush's foreign policy; he'll just make us more enemies. And all that "character assassination"—evidence that Bolton doesn't know how to pursue self-interest at the individual, much less national, level—explains why.