Regarding Bolton, Voinovich said he's "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be. What message are we sending to the world [by appointing] an ambassador to the United Nations who himself has been accused of being arrogant, of not listening to his friends, of acting unilaterally and of bullying those who do not have the ability to properly defend themselves?"

Tough words indeed, but let's wait and see how he votes. If he votes for Bolton, it would be like an employer saying "this person is simply awful for the job -- you're hired!"

Fred Kaplan summarizes:

It takes enormous self-deception to believe that John Bolton is truly qualified-much less the "best man"-for this job. He has long held the United Nations in contempt. He has disparaged the legitimacy of international law (the basis for enforcing U.N. resolutions). As an undersecretary of state in Bush's first term, he repeatedly sought the removal of intelligence analysts who dared to disagree with him. He was such a loose cannon that Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, forbade him to say anything in public without prior approval. A half-dozen officials, most of them Republicans who served in this administration, say that Bolton would make-in the words of Colin Powell's chief of staff-"an abysmal ambassador."

Voinovich said today that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured him that Bolton would be firmly supervised in his new job. Voinovich wondered, "Why in the world would you want to send somebody up to the U.N. that has to be supervised?"

Meanwhile, a Chinese diplomat has said that Bush's tough language directed at North Korea, referring to Kim Jong Il as a "tyrant" in late April, has "destroyed the atmosphere" for negotiations.

Here's a perfect example of what could go wrong with a swaggering, speak-before-thinking Bolton as our UN face. Just look what his possible-boss did for diplomatic relations by mouthing off.

The world is already in an extremely dangerous and delicate state right now; do we really need to throw an 800 lb. brutish clod into the global china shop?

On another matter, use the Clinton rule ("if Clinton were president....") on this one. Imagine the outcry, it would be investigation galore.