05/05/05

Once more, we dip our ladle into the alphabet soup of character. Only this time the letter that keeps coming up is B for Bully. Ever since John Bolton was nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations, he's been described as abrasive, brash, difficult. He's been called a 'serial abuser' of underlings and a 'quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.' Questions about whether he has the T for Temperament to be our diplomat to the world body now have his nomination teetering. I got into this character cookbook business way back in the 1970s when there was a subversive little motto that said, 'The personal is political.' ... It suggested something about our political leaders. Character was a matter of private as well as public behavior. How our leaders behaved to their families, office staff, and underlings said something about who they were and how they would treat the rest of us...

http://tinyurl.com/8cldq

from Boston Globe, by Ellen Goodman


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp