The War on Bolton

I like Jonah Goldberg's piece in the LA Times today on the battle by the left (and at least one RINO) against the nomination of John Bolton to the UN Ambassador post. Given the largely liberal readership of the Times, I've got to believe a lot of lefties were spitting their morning coffee over this one:

I SPEAK NOW not so much in praise of John Bolton as in dispraise of Boltophobia. Bolton is a fine man, a sharp intellectual, a committed public servant and has the most aggressive mustache in American politics today. He's done a first-rate job as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during his yearlong interim appointment, and were it not for the waffling of Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who has sorta-kinda-maybe changed his mind on Bolton in order to get reelected in liberal Rhode Island, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Even Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who's had a feck transplant since his acute bout of fecklessness last year — when he melodramatically decided that he couldn't support Bolton — has changed his mind. His reason for his opposition back then: Bolton was a meanie. The U.N., Voinovich seemed to be suggesting, needs more Hallmark card moments, and Bolton doesn't come with heart-shaped candies and a tickle-me button on his tummy for the ambassador from Syria to poke when he's blue.

Instead, in Voinovich's view, Bolton was a "kiss-up, kick-down" kind of guy, which made a weepy Voinovich "worried about my kids and my grandchildren." We now know that Voinovich was simply a victim of Boltophobia, a kind of St. Vitus' dance that causes otherwise reasonable people to go into twitching fits over the fact that Bolton doesn't love the U.N. enough. The problem is most Americans agree with Bolton that the U.N. is a cesspool of its own crapulence, stealing American tax dollars intended for global do-goodery while working against American interests.

"We can't argue that this guy is unfit just because he's said mean things about the U.N.," a "top Senate Democrat" admitted to Time magazine last year. "Don't forget, most Americans agree with him."

That is correct, Mr. Senate Democrat. Most Americans agree with Bolton and like what he's done in the last year. Supporting Bolton may become as big an issue as supporting conservative judges were in the last two congressional elections.

Good writing, Jonah. I detected a bit of a "Lileksian" style in the excerpt above. All the better with which to tweak the left.