Let me put it this way:
If I hated the Bush Administration and wanted to hit the weakest argument they had in invading Iraq, I would go tooth and nail after the alleged Al-Qaeda connection that Rumsfeld/Cheney insisted on and Powell presented to the UN.
Well, that and continue to pound on the intelligence flap that the CIA bears almost full responsibility for, but that would acutally lead back to manpower and budget cuts (to a degree) made in the '90s during a particular non-Republican administration...
Anyway, Iraq had a documented association with various terrorists and provided support/comfort to certain terrorist organizations, but the ideology split between the secular Hussein and the rabidly religious Al-Qaeda leadership was too great a stretch to be taken seriously. Hussein had little control of the Kurdish-controlled regions where the Al-Qaeda camp was apparently located at and linking him to Al-Qaeda was entirely tenuous at best. This is one piece that still sticks in my craw to this day as it was a piece of cake to link him to other organizations and individuals that, while not as well-known to the average TV-watching US public, were definitely strongarms in the world of Islamic terrorism.
Linking Hussein with Bin-Laden is akin to lining up Howard Stern and Jerry Fallwell as cohorts...
Oh, and I didn't forget you, PDX. I'm not a huge Bolton fan (Michael in terms of music and John in terms of policy), either, but I don't absolutely despise him. I think he's a little too rough-shod for the "Candy Stripers" currently in the UN. I agree that the UN has problems and the US has image problems in the UN, but I don't think Bolton is the type to smooth over either.
Sometimes a China Shop needs a bull running through it, but running another bull through it doesn't clean things up; a broom does the trick much better. Bolton is going to be Bull, no matter how much we try to camoflauge the fact.
One thing I would LOVE to seem him flat-out attack is the group of sad-sacks that sit on the Human Rights council within the UN. The bare-faced hypocracy that oozes out of that set of thugs is patently disgusting and a flat-out embarassment for the UN. The fact that some of the worst known human rights violators around can chair that council shows the kind of shape the UN is in...
