Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton declined to rule out a run for the White House in 2012 when asked about his presidential ambitions in an interview with the Daily Caller published Monday.
"In the sense that I want to make sure that not only in the Republican Party, but in the body politic as a whole, people are aware of threats that remain to the United States," said Bolton, a high-profile and controversial recess appointee made by former President George W. Bush. "You know, as somebody who writes op-eds and appears on the television, I appreciate as well as anybody that...there is a limit to what that accomplishes... Whereas, some governor from some state in the middle of the country announces for president they get enormous coverage even if their views are utterly uninformed on major issues."
Bolton called it "a very great honor" that anyone would be interested in the prospect of him mounting a presidential campaign and added, "You know, it is something that would obviously require a great deal of effort."
When Bolton was asked if he would identify himself as a member of the Tea Party, given his staunchly conservative approach to policy, the American Enterprise Institute fellow and Fox News commentator had this to say:
"I've never attended any Tea Party functions," he said. But, he added, if the movement is, as he understands it, "a true grassroots movement of people who are absolutely outraged at the extent that the Obama administration has bungled its economic policy, overspent dramatically, risked creating a deficit that will burden us for generations" than he thinks "it is pointed in exactly the right direction" and he is "all in favor of" it.