The President’s team ‘has a plan’ regarding the seemingly irrational obsession with keeping John Bolton working at the United Nations.
We just don’t know what that plan is. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote Bolton down, decisively and definitively, if called to vote this week.
Senators Bill Frist and Norm Coleman will probably then stomp around on the floor of the Senate bemoaning what Dems and a wayward Republican voice, calling for a revived centrist ethic, did to their poster child for crude, pugnacious nationalism.
Then, the White House — angry at the rejection of Bolton — could call an end to the bipartisan dance, accuse the Dems of obstructionism and try to "re-appoint" Bolton to his current job as a recess appointee — thwarting not only the Senate that the White House strongly controlled this past year — but also thwarting the next Congress that they control less well and with which they will have a tougher time finding common ground with this type of strident behavior.
Scott Paul has posted a useful short synopsis of a legal analysis of the President’s options on Bolton — prepared by Arnold & Porter. The
analysis is here — and should be read carefully.
Arrgh! I just don’t get it. Why would Bush and Cheney go to this much trouble to do something absolutely nobody wants them to do? It just seems like either the height of arrogance [see
enough already…], or part of some super-devious plot they’re cooking up. Maybe just beating them in the midterm elections isn’t enough, because there’s absolutely no clear rational reason for them to be doing this.
I suggest that Congress refuse to recess until the new Congress is sworn in. You can’t make a recess appointment if there’s no recess! No matter what their reasons for pushing this thing, Bush and Cheney need to be stopped by whatever means necessary. They just cannot stand for anyone to say "
no" to their assertion of absolute power. And John Bolton is a blight!
Somewhere, we need to say a "no" that they can’t get around without being impeached. Bolton’s appointment is as good a place as any…
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