That’s ambassador Bolton to you
President Bush made the first-ever recess appointment of a UN Ambassador and named John Bolton today. Essentially, this means that Bolton will serve until January 2007. The myriad political responses to the decision include a lot of apoplexy from Democrats. Ted Kennedy said: The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White ...
President Bush made the first-ever recess appointment of a UN Ambassador and named John Bolton today. Essentially, this means that Bolton will serve until January 2007. The myriad political responses to the decision include a lot of apoplexy from Democrats. Ted Kennedy said:
President Bush made the first-ever recess appointment of a UN Ambassador and named John Bolton today. Essentially, this means that Bolton will serve until January 2007. The myriad political responses to the decision include a lot of apoplexy from Democrats. Ted Kennedy said:
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.
I am shocked to report that Lincoln Chafee — never thought of as the sharpest tool in the shed — had the most sagacious comment: “We filibustered the nomineee. We exercised our perogative under the law. He [Bush] exercised his perogative under the law.” Over at Steve Clemons’ Washington Note — and Steve has been leading the blog war against Bolton — Charles Brown recaps the winners and losers from the Democrat perspective. Ed Kilgore at TPM Cafe is pretty teed off as well. On the right, Paul Mirengoff thinks this was the right call, though even he’s depressed about the long run implications:
We may be moving towards a system in which presidential appointees who have 60 votes will be confirmed and those who can’t obtain that many will serve temporarily. That’s not a good system, but it’s where the Senators Schumer, Dodd, Leahy, Kennedy, etc. seem to be taking us.
My views on Bolton remain unchanged — from the Bush administration’s perspective, this is an unwanted man being sent to an unwanted institution. Given the administration’s attitude, it’s not clear to me whether anyone else would have been more effective.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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