Opinion: John Bolton still matters
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Former ambassador to the U.N. and current American Enterprise Institute fellow John R. Bolton calls Barack Obama naive in today’s Op-Ed pages and predicts a Walter Mondale-style flaming defeat. Why? Because, he argues, Obama missed some key Cold War history lessons, particularly the way seemingly tiny threats can be proxies for the big ones. (Blowbacker Raoul Lowery Contreras made a similar argument, in response to J. Peter Scoblic’s contrary claim that negotiation isn’t appeasement.)
The piece drew hundreds of reader comments ranging the political spectrum. What did bloggers have to say?
Jason on PoliGazette says:
I am not going to argue that Bolton is completely wrong, but rather that he is overgeneralizing in an equally naive way. Bolton’s read on the origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis are in accord with Khrushchev’s own comments about his impressions of Kennedy, so it is not possible to claim that embracing negotiations will not sometimes be taken as a signal of weakness. But Bolton’s claim that any negotiations will be taken as weakness is going quite a lot further — way too far, in fact.
Michelle Malkin chimes in gleefully: ‘Bolton pins a great big MONDALE sign on him.’ She also refers to Bolton as ‘Stache’ and does some anachronistic John Kerry-bashing....
Gina Cobb reminds that Bolton’s piece is based not on an official statement of policy by Obama, but on a gaffe:
Barack Obama doesn’t know what he thinks about Iran. As evidenced by his evolving stance on Iran -- really, a gaffe during a presidential debate that subsequently metastasized as he tried to defend it -- the threat to America’s national security posed by Iran is not something Obama gave a whole lot of thought to before his presidential campaign made it necessary to answer questions on the subject.
RedState.com gloats (and wants a spot for Bolton in a McCain administration):
The nice thing about Bolton is that...he suffers fools very, very badly. Plus, giving him a prominent slot in the campaign will infuriate progressives at the very moment that they most need to look halfway normal to the American viewing public.
Ace of Spades HQ is with RedState:
Allow me to offer some unsolicited advice to the McCain campaign…I know you want to do the whole Maverick thing and Democrats really hate Bolton but the thing is, conservatives love him. Announce he will be a part of your administration and I guarantee a lot more conservatives will swallow hard and support you.
ProteinWisdom considers Bolton’s critique of the Left:
Indeed, while Bolton correctly notes that focusing solely on direct threats to the US is ironically unilateralist, the Left view of world events revolving entirely around US policy is also supremely narcissistic.... It rests on the premise that if the US would accede to the demands of the rest of the world — regardless of whether those demands are consistent with American values — our problems would recede. It is a comforting myth because it suggests that our fate is uniquely within our control, and allows them to blame their domestic opponents for our woes, rather than having to confront foreign threats.
We’ll give Mark Jaquith the last word:
How can John Bolton, with a straight mustache, criticize Obama for advocating that America act in the best interest of America, and assess threats as they pertain to America? Golly, you’d think Obama was running for President of the United States instead of Leader of the Free World™!
*Photos courtesy Associated Press.