Should John Bolton be the next UN ambassador?

With more Republicans wavering yesterday over John Bolton’s nomination, I think it’s worth asking the question: should he be the next UN ambassador? [Wait, weren’t you defending him last week?–ed. No, I was defending the substantive point he made — there’s a difference. So is he a good choice?–ed. I actually have many thoughts on this, but insufficient time to post. Check back later in the day.] Comment away!! UPDATE: The commenters have actually done a decent job of framing most but not all of these issues. First, does Bolton have the right temperment? There’s echoes in the testimony of the Bob Blackwill case from late last year. However, there is a difference between being an effective SOB who’s a hothead and being an SOB who’s a hothead and seems comfortable with punishing subordinates who disagree with him on facts (as opposed to policy disputes — if that’s the arena of conflict between Bolton and subordinates, then Bolton has a right to punish subordinates who sabotage his decisions). This is a big problem. It’s countered by two arguments in favor of Bolton. First, the President deserves broad leeway in selecting his/her subordinates, even if they’re not the greatest choices in the world. Second, and not discussed as of yet in the comments, is related to a point Matthew Yglesias identified earlier in the week:

It isn’t really the case that “the Bush administration” wants to put the guy in and the Democrats are trying to stop them. Rather, the Bush administration was divided on second term national security personnel decisions, the pro-Bolton faction basically lost out (they wanted him to be Deputy Secretary), and he got UN Ambassador as a kind of booby prize. What’s at stake here will be the ability of Rice, Zoellick, and Hadley to effectively wage bureacratic war against Dick Cheney and his allies. You can get a sense of this from the behavior of Richard Lugar, whose clearly the sort of Republican who wants Rice to win. He’s “supporting” the Bolton nomination out of loyalty to the White House, but he’s also made a lot of procedural decisions as Foreign Relations Chair that make it harder for Bolton to be confirmed. Clearly, I think, he’d like him to be beaten (as would Rice, etc.) but he wants someone else to do the beating.

I think Yglesias is probably correct but it raises a point beyond his. Even if the UN Ambassador job is a booby prize, it’s a pretty nice booby prize that probably mollifies one camp within the Republican Party. If Bolton doesn’t get the job, will this lead some Republicans to act in an obstructionist fashion when Bush puts forward foreign policy appointments more symptico with, say, Condi Rice? As a moderate Republican, this is the question with which I’m wrestling…. is it worth swallowing hard and letting Bolton get the UN job in order to preserve the ascendance of the moderates in the Bush foreign policy apparatus? I’m not sufficiently plugged into the Beltway to answer that question in a satisfactory manner.