Bolton Resigns

The news is discouraging.

John Bolton resigned as US Ambasador to the UN, reported today by WorldNetDaily. Far from being the proverbial bull in the china shop that the Democrats hyperventilated about--breaking the fragile glassware of world diplomacy and goring the sensitive and underprivileged souls with his slashing horns--he has shown himself to be an effective leader who is capable of brokering deals while holding the UN's feet to the fire over events like Darfur.

Deroy Murdock wrote a column for the Washington times yesterday, before the announcement was made, applauding Bolton for his accomplishments during his time at the UN. He says Bolton's critics "consider him as diplomatic as a catapult."

But even if he is a human Vesuvius on duty, he performs vital work and has earned praise from colleagues and admirers overseas. Thus, the Senate should reconfirm him for service beyond his soon-expiring recess appointment.

Rather than merely erupt at everyone around him, as his adversaries claim, Mr. Bolton brokers peace agreements, frustrates despots, fights genocide and steers nuclear weapons from the twitchy fingers of tyrants.

Murdock gets into the specifics of those accomplishments, which include working with France to get an end to the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. Bolton assembled a coalition to block Venezuela from getting on the Security Council and was the first to raise the human-rights violations in Burma before the UN.

Mr. Bolton properly belittled the new Human Rights Council, a forum where Cuba and Zimbabwe lecture civilized nations on how to treat their citizens. He compared this unit's creation to "putting lipstick on a caterpillar and calling it a butterfly."

Mr. Bolton invited actor George Clooney and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel to brief the Security Council last September on Arab mass-murder of non-Arabs in Darfur, Sudan. "Every day we delay only adds to the suffering of the Sudanese people and extends the genocide," Mr. Bolton said. He engineered the Security Council's approval of 22,500 U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. Mr. Bolton continues to pressure Sudan's government to accept these personnel atop the 7,000 African Union soldiers already on site.

He worked to get pressure applied to Iran and North Korea over their respective nuclear programs. And other UN Ambassadors like him. Murdock quotes the Chinese, Romanian, and Algerian Ambassadors saying really nice things about Bolton. And Sweden's former deputy prime minister, Per Ahlmark, nominated Bolton (and journalist Kenneth Timmerman) for a Nobel Peace Prize for "challenging Iran's hunger for nukes."

Democratic senators and Republican turncoat Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island continue to block Mr. Bolton's reconfirmation. President Bush should engage this issue fully by flying to the U.N., standing by his ambassador, and declaring:

"John Bolton has stymied despots, comforted potential genocide victims and hindered Kim Jong-il's and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's atomic ambitions. He toils from dawn to dusk to promote international peace and protect America's national security. The Senate should send this man back to work."

Yes, he should. But he probably won't, and that's what so discouraging.