Yesterday, I worried that critics of John Bolton were behind the curve, and that the Republican opportunists who are using his nomination as a cudgel to bash Democrats in November are starting out with a large advantage.

Fortunately, Barbara Crossette, the long time UN correspondent for the New York Times and now a consulting editor at the UN Association of the United States of America, had already written a "memo to the Secretary of State" for Foreign Policy magazine highlighting the Bolton problem in advance of any confirmed word of his renomination.

Most of the article is behind Foreign Policy's subscriber wall, but I thought I'd share a few key details for you of the problems Crossette sees in Bolton's tenure. Her arguments and the way she prepares them are instructive examples of the message that should be sounded by Bolton critics. Over the next week, as we gear up for Thursday's renomination hearing, Crossette's wise and calm analysis of how Bolton's tactics have concretely slowed UN reform should be modeled.

Some particular problems in Bolton's past year have included:

• Too much involvement in US foreign policy-making - instead of implementing State Department directives and reporting back to Washington on what states are doing at the UN, Bolton is spending too much time in DC. When there, he is keeping up independent relationships with the White House to enable him to effectively run a mini-State Department of his own in New York - in spite of Dr. Rice's assurances to the world last year that he'd be working for her.
• Micro-managing important international matters - no one around Turtle Bay has forgotten Bolton's severe and numerous modifications to the text of the declaration issued by the UN's World Summit last year. President Bush ultimately had to step in and offer remarks during his address to the Summit to show that Bolton's positions on UN reform were not necessarily America's.
• Picking big fights over small issues - Crossette details a dispute over a cultural convention at UNESCO which severely angered a number of key UN countries. The objectives achieved by this move were little understood by anyone but Bolton.

Crossette's most important remark is in her conclusion, where she discusses what the Bush administration should do when considering whether Bolton's ambassadorship should be extended beyond the term of the existing Congress.

She tells the Secretary of State to "establish a set of metrics to gauge what Bolton has actually achieved diplomatically, not how many times he fights a losing battle brilliantly or how many agreements he sinks with his points of procedure. Tally up the results and be ready to tell the president if it's time for a change."

This remark is one that should be printed up and taped to the office door of every Senator on the Foreign Relations Committee this week.