Framing the Bolton debate

Bolton has been nominated not to 'serve' the United Nations, as liberals have it, but to serve the president of the United States and the goals of his foreign policy there. He is such a superb choice partly because there is as little chance of him being captured by the UN bureaucracy as there was of him being captured by the State Department bureaucracy (This was at the root of Bolton's dispute with Colin Powell).

It is time for President Bush to stop making general complaints about 'politics' playing a role in the nomination fight and instead call Democrats on what is their real objection to Bolton: that he will be too aggressive in representing the U.S. at the United Nations and in challenging the corrupt and ineffectual status quo at the world body. That will create a debate that Bolton's defenders can win.