Comes news today that President Bush will name John Bolton the new UN ambassador as a recess appointment, to which The Malcontent says: Good for him.
As Michael Barone points out, Democrats have engaged in a dogged and shameless five-year campaign to delegitimize the Bush presidency. While the President has certainly engaged in his share of partisanship, he has not sunk to the execrable lows of the Democrats, embodied by the rhetoric of their leaders who typically label him a "loser" or worse. But he is, after all, the President, and in making the appointments to which is he entitled under the Constitution, he is merely exercising basic presidential prerogatives.
Meanwhile, as Democrats have dwindled in power and numbers, they have tried to exert an out-sized influence through indiscriminate use of the filibuster. It is about time that they be called to account. The Constitution gives the Senate the power only to advise and consent in the case of certain nominees; it is not intended to give an ever-shrinking minority an absolute veto over all appointees.
One may argue about whether John Bolton is "the right man" for the job, but such talk presumes that there is only one particular type that is acceptable in the position, and it is laughable to expect that he should pass a litmus test of the extreme left. Moreover, anyone with firsthand personal experience with senators realizes that it is hypocritical in the extreme that they should expect senior-level Washington appointees to be absent tempers or egos.
Democrats have endeavored to unduly drag out virtually every Bush nominee, including the utterly noncontroversial SCOTUS nominee John Roberts, in the hope that the delay itself will create some vague whiff of controversy that would sink the nomination and, in turn, add ancillary taint to the Bush presidency. They have had more than sufficient time to discover anything that could fairly disqualify Bolton, and they have failed to do so.
It is long past time to send him to Turtle Bay.
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