Bolton's just too hip

Chicago Sun-Times editorialized Bolton's just too hip for scaredy-cat Dems

Boy, this confirmation battle over John Bolton, the president's plain-spoken nominee for U.N. ambassador, is really heating up. Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Party's comely obstructionist, has charged that Bolton needs ''anger management lessons.'' I don't know about you, but nothing makes me want to hurl a chair through the window and punch someone's lights out like being told I need anger management lessons. So I was interested to hear about the kind of violent Boltonian eruptions that had led Boxer to her diagnosis. Well, here it comes. (If you've got young children present, you might want to take them out of the room.) From the shockingly brutal testimony of Thomas Fingar, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Intelligence Research:

Q: Could you characterize your meeting with Bolton? Was he calm? Fingar: No, he was angry. He was standing up. Q: Did he raise his voice to you? Did he point his finger in your face? Fingar: I don't remember if he pointed. John speaks in such a low voice normally. Was it louder than normal? Probably. I wouldn't characterize it as screaming at me or anything like that. It was more, hands on hips, the body language as I recall it, I knew he was mad.

He was ''standing up'' with ''hands on hips''! Who's he think he is -- Carmen Miranda? Fortunately, before Bolton could let rip with a ''pursed lip'' or escalate to the lethal ''tsk-ing'' maneuver, Fingar was able to back cautiously out of the room and call the FBI anger management team, who surrounded the building and told the deranged diplomat to come out slowly with his hands above his hips....

So vast battalions of America's ''public servants'' sit around all day cross-examining each other about some guy's unacceptably aggressive body language. He put his left hand in! His left hip out! In, out, in, out, he shook them all about! It's the hot dance craze we all do at the Sinister Neocon Conspiracy Initiation Ceremony:

''Ev'rybody's doin' a brand new dance now
C'mon, baby, do the loco-Bolton!''

If he doesn't get the nomination, he's got the makings of this summer's novelty hit, Neoconga No. 5:

''A little bit of fingering of my hips
A little bit of sneeriness on my lips
A little bit of rolling of both my eyes
A little bit of petulance in my sighs
A little bit of starting to almost mock
A little 'You so totally do not rock'
A little bit of memo on your desk
A little bit of you makes me Hulk-esque!''

And, if an underperforming bureaucrat winds up getting Atlanta or Dallas nuked, tough. Better that happen than that out-of-control nutcakes rampage around with hands on hips. After all, as National Review's John Derbyshire put it three years ago, deftly summing up the philosophy of this new war: Better dead than rude.

Scott @PowerLine blogged Do the Loco-Bolton. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, we proudly present Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times column: "Bolton's just too hip for scaredy-cat Dems."

Betsy Newmark blogged Mark Steyn is in top form today on the John Bolton nomination. He notes that the Democrats are all upset about how abusive John Bolton is to his underlings and, as Barbara Boxer said, needs anger management classes.

Of course, all this talk about Bolton's manner in dealing with subordinates is just a smokescreen. The Democrats don't like his strong criticixm of the United Nations and his support for the President's foreign policy. They know that it is a winning PR strategy to be seen as shills for the UN. The UN hasn't had much good press in the United States recently and most people agree that it is an institution ripe for the kind of hardheaded reforms that John Bolton represents.

Betsy is right. The Dems just don't like his strong criticism of the UN, and are afraid he is going to push for real reforms in that dysfunctional organization.