And the meltdown over the recess appointment continues:
“It’s sad that even while the president preaches democracy around the world, he bends the rules and circumvents the will of Congress in appointing our representative to the United Nations.” — Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg
“The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House continues. … It’s a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent and only further darkens the cloud over Mr. Bolton’s credibility at the U.N.” — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
Others who deviously abused their power and operated under a cloak of secrecy include the following:
President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October 1961, getting around opposition from Southern senators. Their resistance had weakened by the following September, and the Senate approved him 54-16.
President Dwight Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953) and Associate Justices William Brennan (1956) and Potter Stewart (1958). Each later received Senate confirmation.
President George Washington appointed John Rutledge of South Carolina as chief justice during a 1795 recess. The Senate rejected the nomination and his appointment expired after he served one term.
Meanwhile, the UN seems unfazed:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and diplomats said that they looked forward to working with John Bolton, the new US envoy appointed despite past anti-UN rhetoric, as the world body considers crucial reforms.
“We look forward to working with him,” Annan told reporters. “We will welcome him at a time when we are in the midst of major reforms.”
US President George W. Bush made the appointment Monday, bypassing the Senate after charges Bolton would hurt US credibility had stalled his nomination.
“I think it is the president’s prerogative and he has decided to appoint him through this process to come and represent him. And from where I stand, we will work with him as a representative of the president and government,” Annan told reporters.
“We will work with him as we worked with other American permanent representatives,” he added.
These over-reactions are beyond absurd.
(via Drudge)
*** Update ***
Look- what is going on now IS absurd. The Democrats say they only opposed Bolton because they wanted documents, but there is little in the way of evidence to convince me that they would have given up the filibuster if they got all the documents. This is not a new strategy, you know…
Second, the Democrats filibustered him. Bush went around them. They are just mad. But it is a little absurd to take them at face value when they moan about Bolton being damaged goods, when they are the ones who have been freaking out about him from day one. And the latest little soundbites I have been hearing are just as silly. Basically, they are now suggesting that Bolton would have lost on an up or down vote, which, of course, begs the question:
“WHY THE BLEEP DID YOU NOT LET THEM VOTE ON HIM?”
If he couldn’t get confirmed, then why not vote on him? Because the issue is more important, and he would have been confirmed. Thus, the rush to the microphones.
Suggesting he wouldn’t have been confirmed in an up-or-down vote is just the latest attempt to damage Bolton, so they can then run around and claim he is too damaged to be the Ambassador. And the circular bullshit continues, as Goldstein noted earlier.
And what makes this even dumber is that I don’t really care about Bolton, I hate looking at that monstrosity on his lip, and I really don’t think any one man can change the UN. But the left-wing freakout on this is too funny not to note.
Mark
As much as I detest Bolton, I have to agree w/ John here.
Recess appointments are part of the game.
There are plenty of Bush administration abuses worth focusing on. This isn’t one of them.
Geek, Esq.
Yeah, it’s just red meat rhetoric for the base.
Bolton is still a liar and a clown, but his appointment at this point is really nothing to get worked up about.
Nathan Lanier
Earlier the Bolton post on Kos said “Planet doomed” but it’s since been sanitized.
Sojourner
This may well be a rare example of Bush uniting.
The Dems don’t like him and quite a few Repubs held their noses and voted for him.
Steve
We’re talking about a nomination that could have come up for a vote at any time if the White House had just turned over a few documents, including intelligence intercepts that would have shown whether Bolton was abusing his security access for political reasons. Sen. Lugar, the chair of the committee, joined in the request for these documents as well.
Anything in those documents that would have affected the nomination? Who knows, but when the response of the White House is to spend months repeating “the document requests are just a sham, pay no attention to them” and then making a recess appointment, I think it’s a little off to start making George Washington comparisons.
Stormy70
Why does the Senate think it is entitled to every document belonging to the Executive Branch? This was a fishing expedition, and the Dems got bypassed. He would have passed if the entire Senate was allowed to vote. The Democrats in the Senate are looking like whiners now.
ppGaz
It’s the D’Amato doctrine.
BinkyBoy
Democrats are just setting themselves up on the correct side of history. When this guy turns out to be the total dipshit that many Republicans and most of the Democrats believed him to be, then there will be no need to dance in joyous celebration, the Democrats will just gleefully point at their earlier comments and meekly walk away.
Sean P
“It’s the D’Amato doctrine.”
Yeah, and look what that got him. You want the entire Democratic Party to follow in his footsteps? Then make sure they keep doing what they’re doing.
Steve
That would be a great response if the Senate had asked for every document belonging to the Executive Branch. In fact, the BIPARTISAN request called for three narrowly-tailored categories of documents that were directly relevant to Bolton’s nomination.
Would the Senate have voted to confirm Bolton once the documents were turned over? That is forever unprovable, but the White House clearly was worried about something in the documents, or they would have just provided them and gotten the vote over with.
neil
I just think it’s funny that the same President who was sanctimoniously lecturing us about the Constitutional duty of the Senate to advise and consent is now duly ignoring it.
Pug
“Why does the Senate think it is entitled to every document belonging to the Executive Branch?”
My, I think some folks opions have changed since the Clinton years.
neil
Meanwhile, the UN seems unfazed…
Oh, come on, think about it. Despite conservative hyperventilation, the UN stays out of internal national politics. And why on earth would they object to a recess appointment? They are diplomats. They routinely deal with representatives of undemocratic leaders, tyrants, oppressors, and so forth. You think a little recess appointment is going to get them turning up their noses? Maybe in Instapundit’s dreams…
jahyarain
but the White House clearly was worried about something in the documents
exactly. what’s in there that the bush crime organization is trying to cover up. if there is nothing to hide, show the docs. i’ll petition every dem to give the lunatic an up or down myself. but like Roberts, there IS something to hide. is this or grape or cherry koolaid?
Sojourner
Hmmm. We have a CIA operative who was outed for political reasons. What a totally unreasonable request to determine if Bolton had performed similar antics.
No, the Democrats are starting to look a whole lot like the majority in this country who, according to the polls, are starting to question the honesty of this administration.
Not everyone in this questions is willing to buy the horse shit this administration is offering.
Halfasthero
Bolton being recessed appointed was a forgone conclusion. Was he or Bush hiding anything? Who knows? Except, of course, for Bush or Bolton. If those reasons surface during his tenure, no one is going to have any “I had no idea he did that before I nominated him” excuses. Bush may have said “fuck you” for good reason, but I only hope for international relations reasons that they wre good. Otherwise he has just shot himself in the foot.
Steve
I remain convinced that John’s overreaction to the overreaction is far more absurd than the original overreaction. The point is not that a recess appointment is per se an abuse of power; if, for example, Jesse Helms is blocking your nominee because he is gay, I’d be all in favor of a recess appointment. But when the White House stonewalls for months on bipartisan document requests and resorts to a recess appointment rather than turning over the documents, I hardly think Democrats are obligated to say “oh well, it’s within his constitutional powers, who are we to question how he uses them?”
End of the world? No. Abuse of power? Sure. Meltdown, hysteria, beyond absurd? Come on.
John Cole
The rhetoric being used is hyperventilating, and overblown, and a meltdown and hysteria.
And beyond absurd.
KC
I heard Kofi Annan (however you spell the name) on NPR acknowledge the Bolton confirmation. He sounded less than thrilled about it. Honestly, I really don’t care that much about the issue altogether.
DougJ
“And beyond absurd.”
And typical of democrats. Why is that they are congenitally unable to express themselves without screaming and making comparisons to Nazis? Maybe it’s because they know in their hearts that they are wrong and all their histrionics are as much to convince themselves as anything else.
albedo
This whole thing is kind of funny. The Democrats get up in arms when Bush nominates a guy who hates the UN as ambassador. Yet the Bush administration has never displayed anything but contempt for the UN (to say nothing of the world community in general). Maybe I’m just experiencing severe outrage fatigue, but what did anyone expect? If it wasn’t Bolton, it’d be someone just like him. We should just count ourselves lucky that he has such a comical moustache.
Retief
Sure a recess appointment is just part of the game. So is using it as an opportunity to claim the president is the worse sort of tyrant. So is denouncing such proclaimations as hyperventiliating and beyond absurd.
I’m sure that if we dug into it we could find such overblown denunciations from the opposition to all three of the examples of previous use.
Oh and I wouldn’t hold Eisenhower up as an example of virtue. His disastrous choice of the Dulles brothers has led to half the problems we’ve had since then.
Steve
What evidence would be sufficient to convince you? It’s easy to say “the Democrats never act in good faith, they’ll just find some other objection”; it’s not so easy to call their bluff, apparently. The Democrats went on record many, many times saying in no uncertain terms that if the documents were provided, Bolton would get his vote. There was no doubt whatsoever about their position.
Now, why would the Democrats do that? Why not leave themselves some wiggle room in case the documents get produced and there’s nothing in them? Good question. The logical answer is that they were pretty confident that what was in those documents would sink the nomination. And the fact that the White House stonewalled on the documents only serves to confirm that suspicion.
I hope no one is under the impression that this was some open-ended request for a mountain of documents that would take six months to assemble. I point out for a third time that this was a BIPARTISAN request – no way would Sen. Lugar have gone along with it if it was total bullshit. If necessary, we can talk about exactly what the three categories of documents were, and why they were so important, except I think everyone already has their mind made up about which side was acting in bad faith and nothing will ever change it.
Kimmitt
I was about to say; what evidence do you have that Senator Reid was flat-out lying when he said that the dispute was fundamentally about the set of documents requested?
Geek, Esq.
John:
As I noted above, you are not the target audience for this kind of rhetoric. Neither am I.
It’s red meat rhetoric that gets tossed around by both sides without regard for the underlying truth.
Bolton’s nomination amounted to a game of chicken between the Dems and Bush. Bush wouldn’t produce the documents (which were requested by Dick Lugar as well), the Democrats wouldn’t budge, and we are left with a eunuch going to represent us at the UN.
This whole thing turned into a partisan battle rather than an honest debate.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Then why not actually give the documents then? The refused to do so, why? If it was all a ploy by the Democrats, why did Frist agree that they should see the documents? Why didn’t Bush just give the documents so that the Democrats couldn’t use it as as “excuse”, if that is all it was.
Your talking out of your ass John and you know it.
The Disenfranchised Voter
You’re*
Bob
Bolton has a history of fucking with CIA analysts who don’t change their findings to suit the administration’s purposes (WMDs in Cuba! har har har!). The biggest lie perpetrated in the move to war was the weapons of mass destruction crap, and that lynchpin was the forged document from SISMI about yellowcake.
Were the documents requested by the Committee about Bolton’s possible involvement in the Plame Affair? Surely, the USS Bolton must have sailed in those waters. Plame worked as an operative in the WMD arena, that’s where Bolton has been flailing and failing in the recent past under George W. Bush. It’s not hard to imagine the intemperate lout on-board with the team leaking her secret status to screw with Wilson.
As for the outrage, I think it’s all part of the game. Heck, John Cole here gets outraged over silly little stuff, like a bank in Berlin taking down a display. The Demos don’t have the votes now to stop this trainwreck of an administration, but they want to be on record beforehand. It would be refreshing for Ted Kennedy to sigh and say something like, well, what did you expect from these motherfuckers, but that’s not Teddy.
Steve
Some floor statements from the Senate after the first cloture vote, first by Sen. Reid:
Sen. Biden:
I think it was very clear that the Democrats were asking for a very limited set of documents which they thought would either clearly torpedo the nomination or, less likely, amount to nothing at all, in which case they acknowledged they had shot their bolt. The goal was to find out whether the stonewalling was mere stubbornness on the part of the White House or if they really had something in those documents to hide. And now I think we know.
John Cole
I said from the beginning they should just dump everything and be done with it. The administration apparently felt otherwise. Having said that, I don’t believe for a minute that the men who characterized Bolton the way they had would have stopped there were they provided what they want.
And anyone who thinks they wanted a limited set of documents and would have stopped there is just willing to grant them an article of faith I am not. They wanted a limited set of documents NOW. And then they would want more. And them more. And then there would be more ‘questions.’ They didn’t want Bolton, and they were doing the only thing they could do to stop him. And Bush did everything he could to get him. Bush won.
And if you think for a minute the GOP wouldn;t do the same thing if tables were turned, you are less cynical than I am.
John Cole
BTW- If I remember correctly, I think they saw the documents, but names were redacted/deleted, and they wanted those. I may be mistaken, but it is all irrelevant. Bolton is there until January 2007.
The democrats lost the power play.
Sojourner
Bush should have called the Dems’ bluff. As it is, the cloud of suspicion is there, and rightly so.
Patrick
I love the AP list of recess appointments. Republican this and Republican that, then the Thurgood Marshall appointment by Kennedy opposed by “Southern senators”, Dixiecrats like Sheets Byrd. Nope, no bias in this media, just move along.
Nathan Lanier
He was a political pawn from the beginning and now President Bush is beating them up about it. Not surprisingly, he’s making a lot of people angry.
SeesThroughIt
Pardon me while I pick a nit, but it doesn’t beg the question. It raises the question, but “begging the question” is a logical fallacy to take for granted as true or assume to be true that which you are trying to prove to be true.
Sorry. I’ll go back to my hidey-hole now.
Bob
Dubya was a spoiled little brat. He never learned compromise at his Mommy’s knee. Those petty tyrants usually take a fall (and I’m not talking about over the handlebars here), but the problem is that Bush is not a petty tyrant.
I think that there is a strain of that little spoiled brat in a lot of his supporters, though, seeing his modulated tantrums as a triumph of their own squelched innate viciousness.
When you think of it, there were probably hundreds of people in the government who would have been better representatives, who could have better advanced the Bush agenda in the UN, and would not have had the baggage that Bolton carried. So why does Bush feel it necessary to push Bolton to the point of bypassing the concerns of even Republican opponents of the guy? It could be little King Georgie’s viciousness, but I think there’s more to it.
Who owns Bolton?
Zifnab
The classic problem with an “Up or Down Vote” is that with a Republican Congress and a Republican Presidency, you’re suggesting we just submit to the tyranny of the majority. We’ve broken the 51% line so everyone should just bend over and take it.
Notice that “Up or Down” vote rhetoric didn’t exist back before 2002 when the Congress was firmly Democrat. Notice also that Republicans are notoriously difficult to break from their ranks. Note finally that if the Republicans were dead set on breaking the filibuster, they’d have done it by now. We’d be hearing chants of “nuke the filibuster” from the right and we’d have Frist up in arms demanding an end to the unconstitutional actions of Democrats who clearly hate our country. But there are a fair share of Republicans who recognize that Bolton is a spoiled little White House bully boy and want him in office no more than the most radical left wing Democrat.
:-p If there was an up or down vote, he might get confirmed. But a bunch of Republican Senators would have a foul taste in their mouths and a black mark on their records. If he never offically gets confirmed and he runs off and does something stupid, no one will link John Bolton to any of the Senators currently running for President.
Pan is a non...
John’s endless charade of pouncing on the ‘overreaction’ of certain parties is not only tiring, it is also enormously self centered, because he cannot possibly understand people’s reactions to something he admittedly doesn’t care about. John has absolutely no care in the world for the matter of John Bolton, he’s clearly failed to study up on the issues at stake, and the only thing he has the guts to stand upon is his contempt for ‘obstructionism’, which is no more than an administration buzz phrase that John has swallowed hook, line and sinker. John Bolton not only failed to get a vote by the Senate, he failed to get the approval of the Republican controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then, the administration refused to provide specific key documents that directly related to his conduct in State and his fitness for the job. Finally, it was just revealed that John Bolton pulled a Raffy Palmeiro by providing false information about his testimony before the State Department Inspector General.
Say what you will about the filibuster in general, but one of its most worthy functions is to provide leverage to congress so that the president cannot steamroll over it and keep its members in the dark. The administration already has enormous power over congress, with a substantial block of congressmen who do his bidding without serious thought, and a financial and lobbying apparatus that severely punishes deviation from the party line. The filibuster’s true constitutional purpose is to force debate when one party seems unwilling to act in the deliberative ‘advise and consent’ role. John must understand the importance of this, but instead he parrots the old ‘up or down vote’ meme, essentially saying that it’s more important for congress to walk calmly on a leash than to check the power of the president through entirely legitimate means.
Finally, your suggestion about the Democrats filibustering indefinately after receiving the documents is boneheaded to the tenth power, as is demanding that they prove otherwise while simultaneously advocating that they not get the chance. The Democrats put all their chips on these documents, betting that they would confirm Bolton’s dishonesty and exemplify his unprofessional conduct, and the administration could have come forth with them and single handedly wiped out the filibuster. The fact that they didn’t suggests that they were far more worried about the outcome of an informed up or down vote than they were about a recess appointment, which should scare everyone.
Fledermaus
And anyone who thinks they wanted a limited set of documents and would have stopped there is just willing to grant them an article of faith I am not
Well we’ll just never know whether this was all a democrat ploy because Bush was too chicken (or too obsessed with secrecy) to call the bluff (if that’s what you think it was.
I’ve had two beers now and even I can find a way out of this dilema and let Bush seize the high ground. Bush could have realesed the documents a week ago and said end vote on Bolton before recess or I’ll just appoint him anyway. Then we are at the exact same spot we are now except Bush could say ‘we gave them what they (Democrats) wanted’ and they didn’t hold up their end of the deal.
But no that’s not how things work. The Administration will never, ever willingly give of information – even where there is a good argument for its release. So we can aonly assume from Bush’s actions that there was something very damaging in those documents.
Fledermaus
Actually now that I think about, this never really was about Bolton for most of the people involved, it was all about control of information.
Sojourner
Oh yeh. Let’s compare racism against one of the greatest civil rights attorney in history with attempts to keep idiot Bolton from embarrassing us at the UN. Yep, that comparison makes a whole lot of sense.
eileen from OH
I’ve been busy and haven’t had a chance to read or jump in and my point may have already been made.
Bush can indeed, appoint anyone he wants in a recess appointment and there are precedents so whining must be kept to a minimum. Although. .. we Dems ARE the opposition, dammit. And unfair as that may seem to some, it’s the opposition’s goddam job to represent the percentage of Americans who, while they didn’t vote for Bush, are still citizens. Believe it or not, I don’t expect the minority party – no matter who that may be – to bend down and grasp their ankles because they aren’t in power. I WANT a strong opposition party. Right now, it’s the Dems, but it won’t always be that way, novenas aside. It’s the freakin JOB of the opposition party to present opposite positions.
One thing I will say, however, is that anyone who has ever been trapped in a Ford Escort for a 6 hour trip home from college immediately recognizes John Bolton as the asshole that everyone votes to leave at the rest stop.
eileen from OH
The Disenfranchised Voter
Hmm talk about granting articles of faith. I think the evidence suggests that there was something in those documents that the Bush Administration didn’t want getting out.
If the documents were just an excuse explain to me why the Bush Administration wouldn’t use that to their advantage?
If the documents did not contain anything damaging about Bolton or the Administration then why wouldn’t the Bush Administration release the documents and then when the Democrats still blocked him, accuse the Democrats of geniunely being blatantly partisan and ALSO dishonest (since they claimed all they wanted were these documents)?
If the Bush Administration really thought the Democrats were just using the documents as an excuse they would have released them and then used their own words against them when they still blocked Bolton. Anyone with an OUNCE of political knowledge knows this, and I know you know it.
Well, if you consider subverting the Constitution and bypassing the authority of the Senate on a bullshit loop-hole as “winning”, then I guess you are right.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Oh and for he record, I think ANY recess appointment that is done to subvert the authority of Senate is complete bullshit.
I don’t care who does it. Recess appointments were intended for EMERGENCY appointments when Congress is not in session, not to stop the Senate from doing it’s job.
I’m sick of these politicians shitting on our Constitution.
Randolph Fritz
I’m waiting for Bolton to bang his shoe on his desk during a meeting of the General Assembly, myself. If there wasn’t a real risk the man could do substantial harm, I think Bolton-watching could be a lot of fun.
ARROW
I’ve read several comments about the sinister nature surrounding the administration’s refusal to go fishing with the Democrats. Maybe someone could explain how these fishin’ folks know there is something in the requested documents, when they have not been able to find anything outside of them. Oh yeah, we’ve got lots of innuendos flying about with respect to how John Bolton challenges the status quo, and hurts the feelings of some poor baby in the process. And for that, he’s a diplomatic liability. Democrats in the Senate are challenging President Bush’s appointment, are they diplomatic liabilities?
Or how about his lie? Bolton apparently answered one of the questions posed to him by the Senate in the negative, when it should have been in the affirmative. When confronted with this reality, Bolton quickly admitted his mistake and changed his answer. And now that we know the truth, of what significance is it? That’s right, NO SIGNIFICANCE AT ALL. What was his motive for this lie, this “intentional” deceit?
The Democratic “leadership” in the Senate has reduced its members, and its supporters, to a bunch of sniffling mootbats, scrambling to find some scintilla of evidence that supports their reading of the political tea leaves. I have more respect for the accuracy of a fortune-teller. At least their motives are based on economics. And what’s at stake… our “reputation” in the international community will be sullied by the appointment of this dastardly bully. After all, we don’t want to offend our international buddies in their pursuit of bribes, er, all that’s good for the world. What a joke!
Syl
“The Democrats put all their chips on these documents, betting that they would confirm Bolton’s dishonesty and exemplify his unprofessional conduct, and the administration could have come forth with them and single handedly wiped out the filibuster.”
Yes, and the Democrats would have found evidence of dishonesty and unprofessional conduct whether it actually existed or not by their spinning and redefinition.
After all it seems ‘hands on hips’ is a new bright line for unPC behavior.
You think Bush doesn’t know this? He’s played his rope-a-dope to the hilt. Hold off on releasing the records until recess then whammo, get Bolton in through the backdoor thus forcing the Dems start their screeching which only serves to turn the electorate off.
Bush knew exactly what he was doing and played the Democrats like a harp by controlling the timing.
Don Surber
“Clause 3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”
DecidedFenceSitter
Unfortunately, in my only slightly informed opinion, that clause has been abused for ages. Its a mechanism for an old era of slow transportation and communication, and when there were more frequent and longer breaks in the legislature, IIRC, due to the fact that DC is built on a swamp.
It’s a stop-gap measure, not an end-run tool, which is what it has been used for for ages. And there’s no way to turn over the years of precedence for using it as such. Alas.
Bob
Pan puts it correctly.
ppGaz
I don’t think so. I think it was a Kabuki play — a series of formalized moves with a rather predictable outcome.
The entire sequence was a set of ritualized message-sending moves on both sides.
As for who lost? That’s easy, John. Your country lost. This is an embarassment. John Bolton appears to be a guy you wouldn’t hire to manage a Jack In The Box. Well, unless you were a real jerk. I assume you’re not.
Sojourner
Hardly. Bolton is a joke. The UN won’t have to take him seriously because his own country doesn’t.
Defense Guy
You don’t speak for the whole country, nor do the democrats. Bolton will be taken as seriously by the UN as any other ambassador that we have sent, because he carries the message of the president of the United States. Those that must deal with him will not be fooled by all this partisan game playing.
mac Buckets
You’re right, John. Of course, this is over-reaction and partisan hysteria, but what else do the Democrats have on which to hang their hats? A Social Security proposal? Ideas on education? A serious plan for anti-terrorism? Since, in lieu of actual policy choices, the Daschle/Reid Democrats have decided on a lowest-common-denominator strategy of gainsaying and fake outrage to try to win elections (that’s worked well for them, hasn’t it?), they are almost forced to pick-and-choose appointments to blow out of proportion, hoping to cultivate fake outrage at roots-level. It’s something the more rabid partisans at Kos and DU admit freely. They only care about winning the next election (governance be damned), and if they have to pounce on an unsympathetic white male like Bolton to “prove” that this Administration is the full of meanies and poo-poo-heads, then that’s what they must do.
It’s a tough sell for a few reasons: This is likely to be viewed as just more partisan obstructionism, like the judicial appointments (so the merits of the document request will likely be ignored). Also, it’s not a super-important appointment for life, like a Justice (If we survived Madeleine Not-so-bright…). I’ll bet that not one in 100,000 Americans outside of DC can name the last TWO UN Ambassadors, and they certainly don’t know that the expected tenure is only a couple of years (no way Bolton even makes it through into a successive GOP Administration). Lastly, Americans generally think poorly of the UN these days, so if the Democrats are trying to paint Bolton as too mean for what is often perceived as the corrupt, bribe-taking Annan Cabal, they are unlikely to get a lot of sympathy. But if that’s the basket in which they want to rest their eggs, I say, let them go for it. There’s no traction in it.
mac Buckets
I wouldn’t hire Madeleine Albright to run the deep-frier, but we survived her. You’ll hardly ever hear of Bolton again once his appointment is settled.
capelza
Hahahaa…that’s so true..though I always thought of him as the freak that would get coked up at an all night party and agressively follow some poor girl around in his tighty-whities waving a can of Pam, harrasing her to the point that she walks the 8 miles home in the pitch dark of 3 AM to get away from the freak…
I don’t think Bush won anything here. He got his ambassador, and now we get to watch. It could be fun. I don’t think Bolton will fare very well in the passive-agressive UN…
Sojourner
Correct, I don’t and they don’t. But I sure as shit didn’t hear a clamoring from the Repubs to make it happen. And why was there no vote? If they wanted him in, they could have made it happen. I suspect that there are more than a few UN folks who know more about Bolton’s antics than we do. Correct, they won’t be fooled by the partisan game playing but it’s not the Dems who are the cause.
Sojourner
You haven’t been paying attention. The American public are beginning to realize that the Iraq war was based on pumped-up evidence that, ultimately, didn’t stand the light of day. And now the Bush administration has put a guy in who has a record of trying to bully intelligence gatherers into supporting his position. Hmmm… Imagine that.
Defense Guy
Since there is no reason to rehash the game playing on this one, I won’t. I will say that this excercise of attempting to make the fact that you have a question somehow point to insidious behavior is a tired old tactic.
They did, and he is. The method used is actually spelled out in the constitution, unlike the method that was used to obstruct. Not that the filibuster is illegal, even though we only ever saw the threat of the filibuster and never the act itself.
TallDave
Why was there no vote??? Did you really just ask that??There was no vote because the Dems promised to filibuster the vote!
And you call Bolton a joke?
TallDave
The American public are beginning to realize that the Iraq war was based on pumped-up evidence that, ultimately, didn’t stand the light of day.
What a load of bull. There was no pumping. Everyone agreed Saddam had WMD, and the rape rooms and mass graves were very real.
Really, Dems just hurt their cause when they make up lies to discredit Bush, and try to dig up every tiny discrepancy they can find to undermine the case for war even while our troops are still fighting. But if you want to see 70 Republicans in the Senate, keep it up. I’m less and less inclined to see that as a bad thing.
DougJ
Look, Dems, Bush won this battle. That’s what leaders: they get their way, doesn’t matter what you throw at them. Dubya’s gotten that with Iraq, with the tax cuts, and now with Bolton. That’s why he’s a REAL leader, perhaps our strongest since Lincoln.
You can whine all you want to about strong arm tactics, but the bottom line is they work. I’m sure you’d prefer to settle everything over tea with a compromise, but most Americans like a strong leader who knows how go get what he wants, no excuses, no compromises.
Sojourner
Frist is lusting for the opportunity to kill the fillibuster. Why didn’t he do it?
Was it because he had a bunch of his own Repubs telling him not to?
What a joke.
Sojourner
Looked at a poll lately?
The rape rooms and mass graves were very real. Although the mass graves occurred during the late ’80’s, early ’90’s when Hussein had friend of US status. It was not the reason the Bush administration gave for the war.
Pan is a non...
If you look at the public’s sum negative reaction to the recess appointment, and the fact that it cost everyone five months and severely slowed down Bush’s agenda, its apparent that nobody, not Bush, not the democrats, not the UN, and not the United States has come out a ‘winner’ in this matter.
Doug
We’ll see. Bolton seems to be the yellowcake dusted gift that keeps on giving. I think he’ll crop up in the Plame investigation and his failure to disclose that he had been investigated by the Grand Jury will dovetail with a craptacular performance at the UN and American’s increased disaffection for the Iraqi morass and increased awareness that Bush got all panicky over WMDs for nothing and serve to bite the Republicans in the ass.
As for Democratic sky-is-falling rhetoric, that’s what it takes to get in the press these days, so they’re probably just making a record and trying to let their opposition to Bolton and the reasons therefore seep into the public consciousness. Did the Bush admin have something to hide that would have been revealed by the Senate document requests? Who knows. The Bush administration has such a secrecy fetish, it’s hard telling.
Tractarian
Wrong. That is revisionist history if I ever heard it. The weapons inspectors were allowed back into Iraq after we correctly put pressure on Saddam. Although Saddam was uncooperative at first, the threat of U.S. military intervention worked – he allowed greater access. According to the IAEA chief, “after three months of intrusive inspections, we have, to date, found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.”
Now, you can say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” but please do not claim that Saddam’s possession of WMD was a foregone conclusion.
pmm
Tractarian,
Your point is well-taken, but keep in mind he did have chemical & biological weapons–the Iraqis employed chemical weapons against the Kurds & admitted to having a fairly large store of Anthrax in the initial fessing up that followed Desert Storm. So he had them at one point, and it appears his regime did surrender/destroy them sometime after Desert Storm.
Nuclear weapons are a different category of WMD, and I don’t think he was ever claimed to possess active nuclear weapons. At most, he was accused of seeking nuclear weapons (Osirak), and the Kay report discusses how his regime was ready to renew research once sanctions were lifted. Biological and chemical weapons are WMDs that are just as dangerous, depending on how they are used.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Thank you, Don. You accidentally proved my point for me.
Read the first sentence carefully…The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may
happen during the Recessof the Senate.The clause is clearly refering to vacancies that happen during
the recess.The clause is for emergency type circumstances when it is urgent that the position be filled. It was not intended to be abused by both the Democrats and Republicans.
The Disenfranchised Voter
LOL. Used the wrong tags.
Thank you, Don. You accidentally proved my point for me.
Read the first sentence carefully…The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.
The clause is clearly refering to vacancies that happen during the recess.
The clause is for emergency type circumstances when it is urgent that the position be filled. It was not intended to be abused by both the Democrats and Republicans.
Randolph Fritz
“Look, Dems, Bush won this battle. That’s what leaders: they get their way, doesn’t matter what you throw at them. Dubya’s gotten that with Iraq, with the tax cuts, and now with Bolton. That’s why he’s a REAL leader, perhaps our strongest since Lincoln.”
Bush made the trains run on time?
Guy, that’s a fascist argument; the mandate in a democracy comes from the people, not from the personal power of a leader.