WASHINGTON — The last time — perhaps the only time — John R. Bolton inspired bipartisan agreement, it was over the shared conclusion that he was perhaps the least diplomatic personality a president could have ever picked to be an American diplomat.

That was in 2005, when Mr. Bolton was last considered for a government job. Accounts of his red-faced tirades against intelligence analysts whose findings he disagreed with so concerned members of the Senate that they refused to approve his nomination as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations.

He wound up getting the job anyway through a recess appointment by Mr. Bush, who later regretted spending the political capital on such a divisive figure, telling conservatives, “I don’t consider Bolton credible.”

Thirteen years later, another president has given Mr. Bolton the far more consequential job of national security adviser. But because that post does not require Senate confirmation, the five months in 2005 that the Senate took to decide whether Mr. Bolton should go to the United Nations remain the only extensive examination of his record and his temperament.