John Bolton Tears Into Obama Administration

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton wrote an article in Standpoint on President Barack Obama and the 2010 elections, attacking the president on international issues and raising questions regarding the staffing of the administration.

While Bolton --whose name has been floated as a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination --focused on foreign policy, he did raise some interesting questions about the presidents economic team.

With heavyweight economics advisers such as Christina Romer and former Harvard president Larry Summers already history, can the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner be far behind? asked Bolton. Do other high-profile officials such as special envoys George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke really plan to carry on?

Obama's first team is disappearing, replaced by pale imitations of real players, insisted Bolton. His lower staffing levels in the White House and State Department are more ideologically hard-core, thus perhaps presaging the more reflexive multilateralism favored by Obama's enduring European supporters. But for a president in potentially desperate domestic political trouble, kudos from Europeans will mean little.

Bolton noted that he did not think that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was much of a factor in the Obama administration.

The big Washington guessing game is whether Hillary Clinton will leave State, perhaps to challenge Obama for the 2012 Democratic nomination, despite her recent disavowals, wrote Bolton. Whether she exits or not, Mrs. Clinton has not been significant in major administration decisions and often seems uncomfortable with her portfolio, except for economic and social development issues. Nonetheless, she and her husband remain one of the Democrats' most astute political teams, and their political careers are far from over.