The Bolton angle.

Prior to Senate hearings into his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Bolton was portrayed by both allies and critics as the bane enemy of the world body. Yet in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations committee last month, the notoriously pugnacious Bolton took care to treat the UN as indispensable to U.S. foreign policy.

"Walking away from the United Nations is not an option," insisted Bolton in his opening remarks before the Committee. "The United States is committed to the success of the United Nations, and we view the UN as an important component of our diplomacy...."

Bolton predicted that the UN would play a central role in the Bush administration's "global democratic revolution." "Now more than ever the UN must play a critical role, as it strives to fulfill the aspirations of its original promise," he declared. While conceding that he had often spoken critically of the UN in recent years, Bolton asserted that the "consistent theme" of his public criticism "is that for the UN to be effective it requires American leadership." It is the Bush administration's intention, he continued, to "strengthen" the UN by making it "a more efficient and uncorrupt organization."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seconded Bolton's desire to "strengthen" the UN. "There's no doubt that this is an organization that needs updating and reforming in order to be effective," stated Rice in an April 15 interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, an unabashed media cheerleader for the administration. "And, we're a founding member of the United Nations. We shouldn't abandon it. We should make it a stronger instrument."

Also working to herd conservative Americans behind the Bolton nomination was "Move America Forward" (MAF), a Republican Party front organization created by a GOP-aligned consulting group in California. Through advertisements on television and the Internet, MAF has promoted a petition drive devoted to the theme, "Get the UN Out of the U.S." It has also served as an uncritical booster of Bolton, insisting that as UN ambassador he would help make the UN work on behalf of U.S. interests.

Thanks to the efforts of Republican-aligned media figures and front groups like MAR many of those conservatives rallied behind the Bolton nomination out of simple partisan reflex. They perceived opposition to Bolton (a member of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations) to be born of Democratic pettiness and spite.

While the public was fixated on this partisan bickering, the administration and its allies laid down a critical ideological marker. The limits of "respectable" conservative criticism of the UN, as defined in the Bolton controversy, are these: conservatives can condemn fraud, scandal, and malfeasance at the UN; they can condemn the world body for being weak; they can even agitate for relocating the world body's headquarters abroad. But "respectable" conservatives cannot seek U.S. withdrawal from the UN, and in fact are expected to support strengthening the organization.