John Bolton: The Right's Clintonesque Wink at Sin

Listening to John Bolton's supporters shift the focus to his experience and brilliance while ignoring his misconduct, I'm reminded of many Democrats' winks at Bill Clinton's personal transgressions and their attempts to keep attention focused on his intellect and leadership.

While we would all hope our best could render our wrongdoing benign, sometimes specific personal offenses are such elephants in the living room that no amount of spin or denial can push them out of view. With a vote to confirm Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador looming, Republicans feel assured they have the right guy for the job, confident he passes every test that counts. However, they overlook relational and behavioral aspects of the biblical values that so many of them claim to affirm.

If Republicans are confused about the characteristics a U.N. ambassador should have, they can go right to the book many claim to hold so dear. There they will find that a good leader should "be above reproach...temperate, sensible, respectable...not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome..." (1 Timothy 3).

The very passages that warn of societal dysfunction associated with sexual sin and thievery also warn against "all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander..." (Ephesians 4:17-32).

Supporters dismiss Bolton's propensity to abuse as occasional unprofessionalism and overzealousness. In their drive to place an uncompromising heavy hand in the United Nations who will "put U.S. interests first," they're willing to not only jeopardize American's integrity, honor, and reputation in the world, they're willing to conveniently pick and choose which moral precepts they will acknowledge and which ones they will not.

While doing all they can to promote "moral values" domestically, when it comes to foreign relations, too many on the Right ignore the admonition: "[I]n humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3-4).

Is Bolton the right guy for the job because Republicans know he will "pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding" (Romans 14:19), or because they know they can thumb their collective nose at the United Nations through him?

Sandra Dufield is a freelance writer living in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania.