Desperate times, desperate measures: Bush, Bolton, and the new "nuclear option"
Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has the latest on the possibility of a recess appointment for John Bolton. It will be interesting to see just how Bush handles this. Clearly, the Bolton nomination is stuck in the Senate, at least for now, as the Republicans just don't have enough votes to beat a Democratic filibuster. But what message would a recess appointment send? That a president who claimed to have so much political capital to spend after what he claimed was a decisive victory last November (at least enough of one to give him a significant mandate) needs to circumvent the Senate's "advice and consent" role to appoint his nominee? Well, Bush doesn't have much as much political capital as he thought and certainly nothing like a clear mandate to bully Congress, but doesn't the problem have more to do with Bolton himself? The Senate, after all, has approved Bush's other nominees within the executive branch, such as Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state and Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, without much in the way of opposition. I suspect that it would similarly have approved a less controversial nominee for U.N. ambassador.
I have no idea if Bush would resort to the "nuclear option" in the Bolton case -- that is, a recess appointment. All I know is that it wouldn't look good. Or, as Steve Clemons puts it in his latest update on the ongoing saga, a recess appointment "would be yet another sad commentary on the White House's refusal to take advice from the Senate that this person is wrong for the job and a flawed representative of American interests to the United Nations". Clemons has done an incredible job at The Washington Note following every twist and turn of the Bolton nomination, and, once again, he's right on the mark.
A recess appointment would signal nothing but desperation from a White House that seems to have very little left in the tank and a presidency that is rapidly losing the support of the American people.
Yes, I think it's time for John Bolton to withdraw. He surely needs to spend more time with his family.
I have no idea if Bush would resort to the "nuclear option" in the Bolton case -- that is, a recess appointment. All I know is that it wouldn't look good. Or, as Steve Clemons puts it in his latest update on the ongoing saga, a recess appointment "would be yet another sad commentary on the White House's refusal to take advice from the Senate that this person is wrong for the job and a flawed representative of American interests to the United Nations". Clemons has done an incredible job at The Washington Note following every twist and turn of the Bolton nomination, and, once again, he's right on the mark.
A recess appointment would signal nothing but desperation from a White House that seems to have very little left in the tank and a presidency that is rapidly losing the support of the American people.
Yes, I think it's time for John Bolton to withdraw. He surely needs to spend more time with his family.
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
8:23 PM
2 Comments:
Well, this wouldn't be quite the "nuclear option" that eliminating the filibuster would be--recess appointments are nothing new. But it certainly shows how stubborn this administration is--it seems to view any compromise, even with its friends, as a defeat.
However, I think the administration is not that concerned with how a recess appointment will play with the public. The UN, to most Americans, is either unimportant or an object of disdain. So, putting Bolton in during the recess probably wouldn't hurt Bush that much. Most people wouldn't care and many of those that do would probably agree with having someone who is identified as being "anti" UN.
By
Anonymous, at 4:24 PM
No, of course it's not quite "nuclear". I just used that term because of its resonance in the wake of the filibuster saga.
In the end, a Bolton appointment would mean far more to Bush's opponents on the left than to the American people -- most of whom, I suspect, just don't care.
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 1:35 AM
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