Reconsidering Bolton

There is apparently another outbreak of sanity going on in DC. The Washington Post is reporting that Senator Voinovich has changed his mind about John Bolton:

One senator's change of heart about John R. Bolton has rekindled efforts to win Senate confirmation for the interim U.N. ambassador, as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) yesterday called for "swift action" on the nomination.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled a hearing next week on Bolton, a sharp-tongued conservative whose aggressive style has earned him enemies as well as fans. On Thursday, Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he no longer objects to confirming Bolton to the U.N. job for the remainder of the Bush administration.

You may remember Sen. Voinovich's embarrassingly unhinged performance on the Senate floor during Mr. Bolton's confirmation. Voinovich broke down and sobbed as he begged his colleagues not to confirm Bolton to the post of UN Ambassador.

President Bush gave Mr. Bolton a recess appointment to the post anyway and Bolton has spent the past year proving what everyone with an IQ in the double digits knew all along. That he would be eminently qualified to hold the job of UN Ambassador at any time, but at this particular time he is perhaps the best qualified person in the entire nation.

As the world faces a crisis of titanic proportions with the Dark-Age savages of the Islamic world seeking global domination the UN sinks under a sea of incompetence and corruption the true magnitude of which has not even begun to be revealed.

That the UN could be a part of the solution to this crisis under the best of circumstances is a hopeless fantasy. No deliberative body whose composition includes a majority of seriously un-free nations has any hope of defending global freedom. However the UN could make things a great deal worse. To a significant segment of Western European and American society the UN carries considerable moral authority (that it does nothing to earn this authority and everything to squander it is irrelevant to the Left).

The UN could easily use its unearned and undeserved authority to hinder that handful of nations who still have the will to act. A man like John Bolton as the Ambassador from the United States wielding the US Security Council veto and unafraid to say the things that need to be said (and make the threats that need to be made) can do an enormous amount of damage control.

That Mr. Bolton has been effective in upholding US interests at the UN can be seen by the fact that the usual rogue's gallery of moonbats is lining up to oppose his confirmation:

"Instead of wasting time and playing politics, the administration should nominate someone else to take Mr. Bolton's place," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat. . .

. . .Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid of Nevada told reporters this week that he will consult with colleagues before deciding how vigorously to oppose the nomination. He said Bolton "has done nothing to set himself out as somebody that should be approved by the Senate."

It has been said that you can learn as much about a man by observing his enemies as you can by his friends. In this case John Bolton comes very highly recommended.