Redstate

Posted at 8:59am on Jun. 30, 2008 Tea Leaf Watch: Bolton and Gates.

Or, as some would put it: the 'Stache, and the Shmoo.

By Moe Lane

As we gear up for the start of the 2008 Presidential election season some time in the next few days (I'll explain what I mean by that tomorrow), the traditional "Who gets what in a X Administration?" game has started up. While the VP speculation is probably most prominent, the final assignment of Cabinet posts is also of note. Indeed, given the weakness of a hypothetical Obama Presidency at national security issues, his choices for SecDef or SecState are probably more important than his Vice Presidential pick. To put it bluntly, Obama needs to have people in both positions whose presence will reassure the American voting public that actual grownups are in charge of our foreign policy*.

Which makes this Times Online piece on Robert Gates, and this WSJ piece by John Bolton, of interest.

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | John Bolton | John Bolton's 'Stache | John McCain | Robert Gates — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:43pm on Jun. 5, 2008 Heck, *Yes,* McCain should announce that he's got a spot for John Bolton.

We'll settle for the 'stache.

By Moe Lane

AoSHQ reminds us of this little piece by Bolton, which starts nicely, and just keeps going:

Obama the naive
His views on world affairs ignore history and imperil the U.S. and our allies.
By John R. Bolton
June 5, 2008

Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions" is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign.

Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War's most dangerous crises.

Such realities should cause Obama to become more circumspect, minimizing his off-the-cuff observations about history, grand strategy and diplomacy. In fact, he has done exactly the opposite, exhibiting so many gaps in his knowledge and understanding of world affairs that they have not yet received the attention they deserve. He consistently reveals failings in foreign policy that are far more serious than even his critics had previously imagined.

Read the whole thing, of course. Drew M of AoSHQ comments:

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.

Consider it a threefer….you’ll get a lot of wavering conservatives to support you with some degree of enthusiasm, this appointment will enable you to pull a lot more Maverick [expletive deleted] in other areas while keeping conservative support and oh yeah, it’ll be good for the country.

Yes, yes, and yea, verily. The nice thing about Bolton is that (as the above article by him shows) 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.

So it's really a fourfer.

Posted in 2008 | John Bolton | John Bolton's 'Stache | John McCain — Comments (40)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:28pm on Dec. 6, 2007 "From Hell's Heart, I Stab At Thee/For Hate's Sake, I Spit My Last Breath At Thee"

I Am Laughing At The Superior Intellect

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

It is no secret that blogger Steve Clemons has been a wee bit obsessed when it comes to the subject of former UN Ambassador John Bolton, leading, of course, to the titling of this post and the comparisons with one of the characters in this somewhat well known story. Clemons rarely misses a chance to let his obsessions go unsatisfied and so, today, in response to this editorial by Ambassador Bolton on the issue of the recent NIE on Iran, Clemons has this post comparing Bolton's rhetoric with MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad that so spectacularly backfired. According to Clemons, Bolton is trashing intelligence analysts the same way that MoveOn.org trashed General David Petraeus, even stating that Bolton "essentially accuses the entire national security intelligence establishment of betraying American interests in the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate."

Really? Let's look at the "proof" that Clemons offers for this . . . interesting proposition, proof that is presented in the form of an excerpt from Bolton's editorial.

Read on . . .

Posted in Iran | John Bolton | National Security | NIE | Steve Clemons — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »