Exit Bolton.

Byline: The Register-Guard

To be a surgeon, one must be able to navigate the intricate pathways of the human body. To be a carpenter, one must know how to work with wood. And to be an international diplomat, one must understand and practice the ancient and essential art of diplomacy.

U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is known for many things - intensity, brusqueness, combativeness and, above all, a neoconservative ideology that views multilateralism with suspicion and the United Nations with disdain. Diplomacy is nowhere on the list.

After Bolton's announcement Monday that he will step down when his temporary appointment expires at the end of the year, President Bush blamed a "handful" of senators for blocking Bolton from getting the confirmation vote in the Senate that was necessary for Bolton to stay on the job.

First, Bush should do a better job of counting. Bolton lacked even the votes necessary to get his nomination out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Next, the president should blame himself for appointing an unyielding ideologue who was utterly lacking in diplomatic skills and who, during his brief tenure, managed to alienate a surprisingly long list of nations.

The Senate refused to confirm Bolton last year because of his bullying management style and well-documented disdain for the United Nations, which he had denounced as irrelevant and useful only as a handmaiden for the United States. Bush then overrode the confirmation process by using a temporary "recess appointment" to send Bolton to the U.N.

Bolton supporters argue that the Senate's failure to confirm him will send the wrong message to terrorists. They also warn that it will disrupt talks on how to deal with Iran's secretive uranium enrichment efforts and North Korea's proclivity for nuclear bomb tests.

But it was Bush who stubbornly chose to make a recess appointment that ensured that Bolton would either have to step down or win Senate confirmation by the end of this year.

If the president had made a more palatable nomination, there would now be no need to switch envoys midstream.

Despite his shortcomings, Bolton deserves credit for pushing through tough U.N. resolutions on North Korea's nuclear activities, for helping forge consensus among allies on the need for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and for finally getting Myanmar on the Security Council's agenda.

Yet Bolton's bumptious style also needlessly alienated many American allies and diminished U.S. influence. Other nations perceived him, often rightly, as disdainful of diplomacy and reflexively inclined to use the United Nations to further American interests.

Bolton represents a hard-edged, confrontational style that voters rejected on Nov. 7. Bush should find a more qualified replacement.

If the president had made a more palatable nomination, there would now be no need to switch envoys midstream.