Media weigh in on Ambassador Bolton

"On the long list of questionable appointments President Bush has made during his tenure, [Mr. Bolton] may be the worst of all," proclaims a San Francisco Chronicle editorial.

The New York Times takes a swipe at Bolton by arguing that any negative impact Bolton has had on US diplomacy will be more limited now than it has been in the past.

If there's a positive side to President Bush's appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations yesterday, it's that as long as Mr. Bolton is in New York, he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else. Talks with North Korea, for instance, have been looking more productive since Mr. Bolton left the State Department, and it's hard not to think that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's generally positive performance in office is due, in part, to her canniness in dispatching Mr. Bolton out of Washington.

"But the appointment is, of course, terrible news for the United Nations," according to the Times editorial.

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A Sydney Morning Herald headline reads "UN gives Bolton a lukewarm reception." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan gave what the Herald calls a "tepid response" to Bolton's appointment.

I think it is all right for one ambassador to come and push. But an ambassador always has to remember that there are 190 others who will have to be convinced ... for action to take place."

"Bush's appointment also was anything but wise," writes the Star Tribune.

Yes, Bolton will be known in New York as Bush's man, but he's clearly not America's man, and Bush is rapidly heading for lameduckhood. This particular recess appointment is not likely to serve the nation's or the world's interests well at all.

Writing in the liberal online magazine Salon.com, Ian Williams questions whether Bolton may hinder any diplomatic progress Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made recently.

On past form, Bolton's big mouth and small-mindedness are guaranteed to undermine any leanings Rice may have toward maintaining normal diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, including the recent attempt to repackage the "global war on terror" – which so many other countries found indigestible because of its misapplication in the invasion of Iraq – as the "struggle against violent extremism."

The liberal blog DailyKos suggests the appointment may backfire on the Bush administration.

Bush thinks he's flashing the middle finger at Democrats, but in reality he's setting back his own cause for reform at the United Nations. As for US diplomacy, it's yet another setback. But this administration has done nothing but give F.U.s to the world community for five years running. This is simply par for the course.

A Chicago Tribune editorial writes that "the end-run appointment of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations is sure to create a nasty embarrassment."

The question is who will be embarrassed – those who support Bolton or those who loathe him. ...

If Bolton behaves like the bullying hothead his critics say he is, he will alienate the diplomats of other nations and signal to the world that the Bush administration doesn't care a whit if the UN headquarters campus flops into New York's East River. A Bolton meltdown would embarrass the president who defied and skirted Congress to ramrod him into the job. ...

If Bolton emerges as a force for a more accountable and ambitious UN, it is his critics who'll have to eat the crow.

Editor of The Progressive Matthew Rothschild writes that "at least now there's an ugly face for an ugly policy."

The decision to go forward with the Bolton appointment, without Senate approval and despite his demonstrable, monumental lack of qualifications, is the Bush-Cheney way.

It's macho, in your face, unilateral, we don't give a damn, we're doing it our way, and if you don't like it, tough.

That's the style that got the United States into Iraq and into the torture scandal. ...

Let the world, and the citizens of this country, see it for what it is.

Despite the plethora of negative press following Bolton's appointment, conservative sources were out in force lauding Bush's move.

An editorial in the conservative Boston Herald explains why it thinks Bolton is the right man for the job.

Bolton, who helped engineer the repeal of the UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism, knows well how that world body can and should work – not as a toothless debating society, but as a force for good and for security in the world.

Perhaps Bolton's brand of tough love can help restore the United Nations to something resembling relevancy on the world stage.

An editorial in the National Review Online expressed its support for Bolton this way:

The arrival in New York of Ambassador Bolton is another piece in the creation of a second-term State Department team that believes in Bush's agenda and will advocate it, instead of fighting it. Colin Powell and co. did the latter, and it is no coincidence that they fought Bolton's nomination with an underhanded campaign of leaks. Anyone interested in seeing diplomacy be a more important tool in the Bush arsenal – as Joe Biden and other Democrats claim – should welcome his arrival at the UN.

Will Mr Bolton change his tone in the hushed corridors of the UN? Or will continued shouting drown out all calls for fresh co-operation? The most likely outcome is that, whatever the differences in style, America's new man at the UN and his interlocutors will find a way to talk to each other. There is too much at stake – the future of Iraq, nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea, atrocities in Sudan – for either side to give up on the other entirely.

Also...
• Iraq 'to meet charter deadline' ( BBC)
• Sudan fears for peace after Garang ( BBC)
• Iran says it will break UN seals placed at a nuclear plant ( The New York Times)

• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Matthew Clark.