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| Bolton thinks the White House is dangerously soft |
| 2007-11-09 |
| Or at least that's the way the NYT is spinning it. The White House’s effort to challenge Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been hobbled by “four and a half years of failed diplomacy.” Its policy regarding North Korea is a dangerous fraud. It is pursuing an improbable Palestinian-Israeli peace at the expense of its stance against proliferation in the Middle East. And that from a longtime Bush loyalist: John R. Bolton, the conservative lawyer who until less than a year ago was President Bush’s proudly unwavering ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton, long viewed by liberal critics as a villain on the Bush team, has since emerged as the administration’s most outspoken critic from the right, rebuking his former boss in interviews, in op-ed articles and now in a book. For a man who rushed to Florida in 2000 to join the Bush campaign’s legal fight during the disputed vote recount, the disappointment sounds personal. “I didn’t spend 31 days in Florida,” he said, “to end up where we are now.” Mr. Bolton’s criticisms reflect a growing unease among some conservatives that a weakened White House chastened by the war in Iraq is abandoning core principles in pursuit of a more moderate policy of negotiations. “You see this at the end of every administration,” said Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republic of Michigan, who criticized the administration’s talks with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. With Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, another staunchly conservative Republican, he recently wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, calling on the administration to disclose information about a reported Israeli airstrike in September against a site in Syria that was suspected of being a nuclear facility that North Korea was equipping. “I’m going to watch very carefully what they do in North Korea,” Mr. Hoekstra said in a telephone interview. “I’m going to watch what they do with the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Syrians.” Mr. Bush’s turn to a more pragmatic policy coincided with the departure of some of the administration’s most hawkish officials and the ascendancy of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state. Now, some of the debates that once occurred behind the administration’s closed doors are taking place in public. “I thought the policy had been moving in the wrong direction for quite some time,” Mr. Bolton said of his decision to leave when his recess appointment expired with the last Congress at the end of December. (The White House discussed keeping him on, though it was clear that the Senate would never confirm him as ambassador.) “Not only was it moving in the wrong direction, it was going to continue in the wrong direction no matter what I did,” he continued during a recent interview at the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative perch to which he returned. “So in the cost-benefit calculus of being in the government, I just felt that on policy terms I could do more outside the government than within.” When Mr. Bolton stepped aside, Mr. Bush called his departure a disappointment, and for an administration sensitive about criticism, it has turned out to be one. When Mr. Bolton’s name came up in a recent conversation, an administration official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly recalled, the president curtly responded, “Interesting guy,” and changed the subject. Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Dana Perino, would say only, “He has a huge amount of respect for John Bolton.” |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #11 Bolton was the best fit for the UN. Taken another bout, that MAN would make an excellent cabinent member, if not advisor. |
| Posted by: newc 2007-11-09 22:40 |
| #10 TOPIX > TURKEY APPROVES BUILDING OF NUCLEAR ENERGY PLANTS. See earlier RB Postings + Net news on Israeli "apocalyptic" fears vv Egypt, Saudi Arabian nucprogs. REDDIT - You-know-who signals new effort in Congress for DRAFT as necessary to suppor US WOT and other US global agendas-objectives. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-11-09 22:04 |
| #9 INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE [ICH.com] > ISRAEL PLANS NUCLEAR STRIKE AGAINST IRAN; + PAYVAND > WHEN WILL THE WAR AGZ IRAN BEGIN/START? + US DEFENSE THINK-TANK WARNS WASHINGTON ON IRAN WAR, + RENSE > WAR AGZ IRAN IN FIRST HALF OF 2008. USA wil undoubtedly win a US-Iran War but only after sufferring more casualties than per IRAQ via both direct campaign + asymetric Iranian retaliation [Local/Region-wide Iran-ordered Terror, Missle strikes agz US forces-bases] including poten agz CONUS itself. *AMERICAN CHRONICLE > THE US AND THE FAR EAST. US policies for free trade/open ports in the FE, includ trade-centric "gunboat diplomacy", ironically now endangers the US. ARABS = ME MUSLIM STATES NEED TO RCOGNIZE THAT THE USA NEEDS THEM MORE [Trade-Oil]THAN IT NEEDS ISRAEL??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-11-09 21:59 |
| #8 I'm wondering if he like to run for Prez? He could only win in a better version of this country but we can still dream. |
| Posted by: Grumenk Philalzabod0723 2007-11-09 20:07 |
| #7 The White House’s effort to challenge Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been hobbled by “four and a half years of Fixed that. Its policy regarding North Korea is a And that. It is pursuing an improbable Palestinian-Israeli peace at the expense of its And that. All done! Seeing as how Mullah Richard already nailed the "Republic of Michigan" quip. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-09 12:47 |
| #6 When Bolton was on the Dennis Miller radio show the other day, Miller made a casual remark about Bolton being Secretary of State under a Giuliani administration. Can you imagine the hysterical uproar? You couldn't make enough popcorn - hahaha! Of course, I'd love to see him in that position under any administation, but I can't imagine anyone but Giuliani considering the struggle that it would take to confirm him to be worth it. |
| Posted by: ryuge 2007-11-09 11:17 |
| #5 We want a warmonger. ;-) All the rest is gravy. For the forseeable future, only the Republicans are supplying warmonger candidates. And real conservatives don't win the White House. Ronald Reagan, bless him, was perfectly happy to let Congress spend, so long as he got his tax cuts and his defeat of the Soviet Union. Similarly, George W. Bush made sure he got his War on Terror; and he might even be winning it, too, in only two terms. Remember, half this country is not conservative, and like it or not they must be accommodated. We aren't like the French, who swing from Republic to pseudo-monarchy and back again, never stopping in the middle. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-11-09 11:15 |
| #4 Good luck finding one of those. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-11-09 09:38 |
| #3 The White House has been dangerously soft. On just about everything except the war in Iraq, and then only just recently did he do something after the State department bollixed the whole thing up. Can we get a real conservative leader in the White House please? |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-11-09 09:24 |
| #2 "Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republic of Michigan" Is the NYT writer waxing 'hopeful' or is Mr. Myers just one of those NewYorkers that don't understand anything west of the Hudson? |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2007-11-09 09:20 |
| #1 I'm wondering if he like to run for Prez? |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2007-11-09 09:20 |