Dark Bilious Vapors

But how could I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and withal escape being classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark bilious vapors....
--Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: Meditation I

Home » Archives » June 2005 » The Bolton fiasco plays out....

[« Thought for the Day:] [Shelby Foote, Author and Historian »]

06/29/2005: The Bolton fiasco plays out....


Josh Marshall, citing Steve Clemons, notes that the White House and Senate Republican leadership has pretty well given up on shepherding the Bolton nomination through the Senate. Hot damn! There's spending "political captial" for you. Josh further notes:

What remains to be seen now is whether President Bush will bypass the senate and install Bolton at the UN by a recess appointment.

For starters, it's worth saying that that's the president's right. Whether it's fair in the abstract is just as irrelevant as the question is about the filibuster.

But it is also becoming increasingly clear that winning on Bolton is more important to the White House than having someone in that position who would be in any way effective in the job by any measure. He would, I assume, be the first UN Ambassador ever to be seated who quite publicly lacked the confidence of the United States senate. And what does it tell you exactly about President Bush's foreign policy priorities today -- and all the challenges that the country currently faces in Iraq and elsewhere -- that he's putting so much into sustaining this single nomination? There's nothing else going on in the world that could use the attention and political muscle more than this?
Well.... You do have to credit Bush for his tenacity. He decides he wants something done, and he spares no effort or expense to get it done.

But his choice of goals to exert that effort and spend that expense gives one the impression that Dubya was either born incompetent, or else studied assiduously for years to achieve incompetence. A stunning achievement in any event.

Len on 06.29.05 @ 07:29 AM CST



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