Trading Kid Gloves for Kid Dynamite

The only reasons John Bolton's critics don't want him to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations are that he is a terrible diplomat, he dislikes the U.N., he has a short temper and he's a bully. Outside of that, he is President Bush's kind of appointee.

This is what his detractors fear he'll do if he gets the job:

John Bolton, in a Security Council meeting, turns to the French ambassador, who has made a speech about Iraq, and says, "Oh yeah?"

The French ambassador says, "Oh oui ."

"You wouldn't say that if you didn't have diplomatic immunity."

"I can say anything I want to."

Bolton says, "Let's step outside and I'll knock your teeth out."

"I don't want to step outside and fight you. I am a black belt in karate and a kickboxer, but my instructions are to solve all disputes in the U.N. diplomatically."

Bolton says, "My instructions from Washington are to do anything to win. And if any country disagrees with us, we'll shove the veto vote down their throat. Why don't we go down to the U.N. gym and have it out with bare knuckles?"

"Monsieur Ambassador, you are, as we say in France, a brute -- a bully."

"And you're nothing more than a cowardly frog."

"And you are a money-grubbing flea."