As part of part of Hillsdale
College’s DC-based Kirby Center for the Constitution and Citizenship
“First Principles on First Fridays” lecture series, John Bolton spoke at the Heritage Foundation today.  9/11 is of course a somber anniversary for our country, and a fitting moment to reflect on how how American foreign policy is being shaped in the post-George W. Bush era.

In Ambassador Bolton’s view, it is not a pretty picture.  He graded President Obama’s performance as ”absent.”  As Bolton pointed out in his remarks, the administration is pursuing a course of “Neo-Isolationism,” the point of which appears to be withdrawing American forces and refraining from using American influence around the world because such actions might be objectionable to the global community.  Ambassador Bolton noted that while President Obama has declared he believes in “American exceptionalism ,” the President followed up that assertion by saying he believed in it just as he suspects “that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”  By this logic all countries are exceptional in their own view–which should make everyone feel good–but the problem is that then no country is truly exceptional, including America.  This approach, Bolton surmised, has been the guiding principle that unites the President’s repeated offers to negotiate directly with Iran, enabling of the dog-and-pony show that was former President Clinton’s visit to North Korean, and eagerness to cede power to the International Criminal Court–while presiding over the evisceration of the Defense budget.  Ambassador Bolton was particularly outspoken on the current situation in Honduras, in which the administration is siding with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro and against Honduras’ constitutional process.  He gave that situation “an F.  No question about it.  This is a disgrace.”

After the lecture, Ambassador Bolton graciously granted Redstate an exclusive interview to follow up on the formation (or lack thereof) of foreign policy by President Obama’s national security team, Hugo Chavez’ mischief-making around the globe, and the ramifications of the Obama administration’s policy towards Israel.  Click here to listen to the full podcast.

Jeffrey Rosen, writing in The New Republic, highlights President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s entry in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, which lists federal judges and rates them based upon the reviews of lawyers that have argued before or worked with each judge.  Sotomayor, it seems, has a bad judicial temperament.

“Sotomayor can be tough on lawyers, according to those interviewed. “She is a terror on the bench.” “She is very outspoken.” “She can be difficult.” “She is temperamental and excitable. She seems angry.” “She is overly aggressive–not very judicial. She does not have a very good temperament.” “She abuses lawyers.” “She really lacks judicial temperament. She behaves in an out of control manner. She makes inappropriate outbursts.” “She is nasty to lawyers. She doesn’t understand their role in the system–as adversaries who have to argue one side or the other. She will attack lawyers for making an argument she does not like.” [emphasis added]

Rosen had earlier reported on conversations he had with lawyers, clerks, and former judges on Sotomayor’s Second Circuit, most of whom raised similar concerns about her fitness for the bench based on her “domineering” temperament and her “inflated opinion of herself.”  The almanac’s entry confirms those observations.

The criticisms of Sotomayor by those who worked with her bear resemblance to those levelled at former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton during his confirmation hearings.  Bolton was assailed by Senate Foreign Relations committee Democrats over allegations that he was a “bully” who routinely abused those in subordinate positions.  The question of temperament was a key rationale used by Senate Democrats, and some Republican defectors, to deny the impeccably qualified Bolton confirmation.

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The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has declared itself to no longer be party to the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War and established the uneasy peace that has reigned on the southeast Asian peninsula for the last 56 years.

The announcement comes on the heels of a long-range missile test, a nuclear detonation, and multiple short-range missile launches, none of which represented physical attacks on neighboring states but all of which were very much intended to be seen as threats by those who would dare out pressure on the hermit kingdom to walk back its aggressive policies and live within the bounds of international consensus and agreements.

Though the Republic of Korea is used to such rhetoric and posturing from its northern neighbor, Pyongyang’s latest ratcheting up of tension on the peninsula comes as a direct result of the ROK announcing its decision to become a member of a program known as the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI.

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Well, they’re claiming that it was, and there’s evidence that it happened in the form of an earthquake,so that’s how everyone is betting.  Japan is calling for an emergency UNSC meeting; South Korea, dealing simultaneously with this and the suddenly-more-murky suicide of its former President, is doing the same.  The White House hasn’t put up the President’s official statement on this yet, but you can read it here - it differs from the White House statement in 2006 most notably in its unconscious reliance on the UNSC to resolve this situation.  Also missing is any indication that the President has personally consulted with our allies in the region, but no doubt he’ll address that when he holds a press conference this morning on the North Korean crisis.  Note that I am merely assuming at this point that there will be one, and that it will take place before noon.

Meanwhile, John Bolton predicted that this test was going to happen last week; he also noted last week that the administration wasn’t taking the possibility of a second test all that seriously.  Compare the White House statements from today and 2006 again and ask yourself, Which one sounds like it was written by people taken by surprise? Also ask yourself, Is Bolton right when he suggests that not taking even a soft line on this will merely encourage North Korea - and Iran - to proceed?

Please also note that we are in a situation where two of the biggest current, active, and intractable threats to world peace are rogue nations simultaneously pursuing nuclear weapons and missile technology.  Successful creation of both will put at immediate risk our regional allies; allies that we have spent a lifetime cultivating; and who are genuinely alarmed at the activities of their neighbors.  And in both cases, the enemies of said rogue nations were picked for essentially irrational reasons, meaning that normal rules of deterrence may or may not work.

Meanwhile, President Obama wants to gut missile defense programs*.

Um, no.  That’s stupid.

Moe Lane

*Via FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog, via Michelle Malkin.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.