Uh, the non-vacuous complaint against Bolton is that he's an outdated thinker who hasn't adapted to the current century.

As near as I can tell, he's being opposed because he's a conservative.

If pointing out that someone like Bolton is an idiotic choice because he would be counterproductive EVEN FOR YOUR OWN GOALS is a "policy difference" for you, then you don't understand the language.

You continue to ignore that when Bolton wants to get from A to B, he makes up his own flawed map of reality and winds up in a ditch. Since you didn't get it the first time: opposing a record of failure is not a policy difference -- unless your preferred policy is wrecked-in-the-ditch failure.

"She's prepared to provide an affidavit. The letter she sent in, and I'm going to just take a second here, it says, "When I was dispatching a letter to [US] AID, my hell began. Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel, throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door, and genuinely behaving like a madman. I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton then routinely visited me to pound on the door and shout threats."

Look, I have no illusions about winning a popularity contest with any of you. I was roasted the other night, and a friend of mine asked: why are we honoring this man? Have we run out of human beings?

It's not always the most popular guy who gets the job done.

To the best of my knowledge, Ms. Townsel had limited contact with Mr. Bolton, who at the time she claims was hostile to her, was working on another project for IBTCI in Moscow (Healthy Russia 2000). Ms. Townsel's recollection of what transpired, ten years later, is impossible to square with the fact Mr. Bolton was not engaged by our firm to have any contact with her on any issue related to her activities in Kyrgyzstan. In fact, later Mr. Bolton became our legal counsel to represent our interests before the U.S. Government in response to Ms. Townsel's efforts to try to grab our contract. Her claims against Mr. Bolton make no sense but are consistent with her belligerent attitudes towards others.

In fact, Ms. Townsel's professional performance is central to understanding her behavior and her extreme hostility to anyone associated with our company. As a Team Leader, she attempted unsuccessfully to charge the U.S. government for disallowable costs. She became enraged and abusive when our Business Manager, Auditor, and Executive Vice President each questioned these activities/costs, The situation was so serious that we had to post an expatriate from Head Office to our project office in Kyrgyzstan to ensure that proper accounts were maintained as we bad lost confidence in her business and billing practices.

Her poor performance, treatment of other employees and attempt to take over our contract became issues; and thus I was required to step in and remove her from her position. Mr. Bolton's role with IBTCI was unrelated. to her activities at the time. At no time did we ask, or seek Mr. Bolton's intervention with her. I certainly did not hear, contemporaneously, from any other employee in Moscow that anything occurred between Mr. Bolton and Ms Townsel in Moscow, Consequently, it is difficult to understand how Ms. Townsel could make such accusations with any veracity.

Then, it came to light that she had written a letter to USAID urging that IBTCI lose its contract with the agency and her firm be hired instead. This caused great consternation at IBTCI.

The new account that corroborated Ms. Townsel's complaints against Mr. Bolton was offered by Uno Ramat, who worked with her on an Agency for International Development project in Kyrgyzstan in 1994. Mr. Ramat said Mr. Bolton, who was then a lawyer representing Ms. Townsel's and Mr. Ramat's employer, International Business and Technical Consultants Inc., flew to Moscow to counter Ms. Townsel's complaints that the company was slow in providing cash to pay suppliers.

"He was very intimidating and nasty," Mr. Ramat said in a telephone interview from Toronto. "He terrorized the office, he really did."

Mr. Ramat also said he recalled a series of phone calls from Ms. Townsel, who was in Moscow, complaining of Mr. Bolton's behavior. He said she complained at the time, as she has in recent days, that Mr. Bolton followed her around the hotel, pounded on her door and threatened her.

"When I was dispatching a letter to [US] AID, my hell began. Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel, throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door, and genuinely behaving like a madman. I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton then routinely visited me to pound on the door and shout threats."

When someone is too weak, lazy or cowardly to address the serious criticisms, and only responds to the goofiest ones (of Bolton), then that someone is a hack.

Over and over again you pretend to be serious, while not bothering to actually address any of the serious criticisms of Bolton. All you can do is pick silly fights, and appear not to grasp the obvious.

Ergo, you are a pretentious hack.

Bolton is now apparently a liar too. Read here.

And all you can say is, well, all the criticisms boil down to him being a conservative.

You're a silly hack.

It's your blog. You brought up Bolton. You defended Bolton, claiming all criticism was ill-founded. You claim this without actually acknowledging existence of valid criticisms, despite mounting evidence, and qualms voiced by CONSERVATIVES in the Repub party.

So now you expect everyone else to do the research on YOUR topic, to refute YOUR baseless claim.

So you are so ill-informed as not to even recognize it, and so can't address my point about Bolton as an outdated thinker. That's serious criticism, and you couldn't even connect the dots to respond.

Bolton believes the US is the sole superpower, and should throw its weight around much more.

There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world — and that’s the United States — when it suits our interests, and when we can get others to go along...

This kind of mindless creation of the United Nations as something different from what it’s in the United States’ interest to do isn’t going to sell here or anywhere else.

[T]he nature of the new world system [] was not so different from the old. It was for the moment more stable, but a reasonable forecast would be that Africa in particular had a century of border wars ahead of it. On the other hand, such was the power of the anticolonial idea that great powers from outside a region had relatively little influence unless they were prepared to use force. China altogether backed Fretilin in Timor, and lost. In Spanish Sahara, Russia just as completely backed Algeria, and its front, known as Polisario, and lost. In both instances the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with not inconsiderable success.

Yet the US is being surpassed economically by the EU as well as by Asian markets, has failed spectacularly to assert its will with several countries since 2000, and is facing long-term military personnel challenges because of the neocon/Bolton failure to recognize the reality of the situation in Iraq. Doesn't this mean Bolton is out of touch with the 21st century? Don't we need a reality-based ambassador?

What is your take on Colin Powell's criticism of Bolton?

Okay, let's take your own case of North Korea.

How has Bolton's approach been anything but counter-productive, unless your idea of success is a publicly-announced nuclear capability by N. Korea???

You dismiss Hubbard's point without noting that more than 60 retired U.S. diplomats joined Lugar in a letter opposing Bolton's confirmation. I think Hubbard's claim that Bolton's speech was NOT cleared is much more plausible than Bolton's claim. It would be shocking if Bolton's speech WERE cleared. If it were cleared, there would be a paper trail. That he was a loose cannon makes lots more sense.

You make this odd claim:

"You are the guy saying he shouldn't be confirmed. "

Uh, no. Not at all. If you read what you wrote, you claim that all the criticism seems to boil down to him being "conservative".

I've said this s few times, but will try again. If you say there is no valid criticism, you need to address the best there is. You didn't. You addressed the silly MSM as if that's the best there is. It is a common trick, to look for the weaksest. Serious commenters take on the best arguments to make their case.

I only commented on your commentary as a weak approach, not a serious one.

You say, "The onus is on you to present a case."

Well that's backwards, isn't it. But let's try it. So if I make a silly argument (Silly argument exaggerated: "I don't understand all this criticism of Hitler. It seems to boil down to his failure as an artist, his mustache, or this socialist thing."), then apparently it's not enough for you to say, "That's silly. YOu act as though your selection of weak criticisms is representative." Somehow I would be right in saying, as you do, the onus is on YOU to prove otherwise???

No no no. You made the argument about Bolton criticism, and now you're running from your own "conservative" claim.

thought that was clear. When a country (India, Pakistan, Iran, whatever) reaches the point where it can defiantly say, "We have nuclear weapons," it is a challenge. NK feels that with the Bush admin, it can answer Bolton by trumping him. It appears that it will get away with it, and Bolton and the neocons have another startling failure to their credit.

If you read the PNAC manifesto from 1998, you see that the necons are achieving the opposite of their goals for the US role in the 21st century. They want to go from A to B, and instead have moved us the other way (minus B?). The danger of a John Bolton (and many other neocons) is that he is too pig-headed to recognize his own failures, let alone learn from them.

What kind of ambassador would he be, when 60 others ON OUR SIDE write a letter to oppose him?

But hey, even with all this out there, your take is that, near as you can tell, the opposition is that he's a conservative. Or maybe it's his haircut.

At best, that's not an intellectually honest position.

[The US]has failed spectacularly to assert its will with several countries since 2000...

When was Moynihan's comment made? What makes you think Moynihan is himself not an outdated, 20th century thinker?

Lots of folks haven't accepted the reality of the US position in the 21st century. That doesn't mean we want one as ambassador to the UN.

See, I just told you that not everyone was ready for the 21st century.

The EU has muscles to flex. Ask GE's Jack Welch, who learned the hard way that the EU could dictate to a US CEO about his products. Microsoft has learned too. The EU has more in common than a currency. A centralized budget means it has control to begin paying for its own defense -- and may do that gradually over the next 50 years. What someone above called Europe's weakness (letting the US spend wildly on military) may convert to an independence from the US that is much more serious from the US POV.