Bolton, as promised.

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Everybody has been buzzing about it for a while, but even so... I was SHOCKED when the top story from the Washington Post reported Bush's installation of John Bolton as the U.S. representative to the United Nations.

Basically, the idiot in this fiasco has been Bolton himself. HE should have stepped down, seeing that 1. he simply won't be confirmed by the Senate 2. he's still the worst man for the job, and 3. the people at UN already hate him.

Let's look at these step by step:

1. He couldn't be confirmed by the Senate.

I ABHOR the fact that the White House is making Bolton the "victim" of unfair partisan hackery. It is true that if a vote was to be held, Bolton would pass... barely. I can IMAGINE the pressure they put on Voinovich and other moderates who wanted to vote against him in the committee. Also, it's the WHITE HOUSE that wouldn't turn over the documents. Refusing to do so only made the Senate Dems think, "So, what have they got to hide about Bolton that is so potentially bad?" It's not a conspiracy-theory... It's a logical response to the overwhelming use of secrecy by the White House. The WaPost article quoted Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA):

"The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House continues," Kennedy said. "It's bad enough that the administration stonewalled the Senate by refusing to disclose documents highly relevant to the Bolton nomination. It's even worse for the administration to abuse the recess appointment power by making the appointment while Congress is in this five-week recess."

The bolded phrase is key in refuting any right-wing argument on conniving Senate dems denying "competent" (note use of quotations to indicate questionable use of the word) nominees a fair confirmation vote.

Since then, the impasse focused on Democrats' demands to see two sets of documents related to Bolton's State Department work. One involved national security intercepts of conversations.

Democrats wanted to know whether Bolton was seeking secret information on rivals in the intelligence and foreign policy communities. The other documents involved Syria and questions of whether Bolton misled lawmakers about his role in compiling them.

I can go as far as saying that the Senate Democrats were BRAVE in holding back on Bolton for the good of the country. Without it, Bolton would've passed. But the VERY FACT that the administration's holding back facts might signal possibly disastrous information on Bolton that would make him an even more unsuitable candidate for the position.

2. He's the worst possible man for the job.

Then again, he fits the Bush administration's nomination strategy: identify and nominate the person who has been most effective in destroying a particular government branch or agency. This explains all the anti-environmental lobbyists being appointed to the Environmental Protection Agency, and now... the most undiplomatic man in the State Department to the United Nations, an international organization for diplomacy.

I won't even continue on WHY he's so bad. Montague preemptively announced my monster-attack on Bolton INSTALLATION (kind of like installing a devastating virus) because I haven't had a very favorable opinion of John Bolton since... oh, since he was first nominated in March.

Decaf- April 22, 2005
Xanga- May 10, 2005
Decaf- May 12, 2005
Decaf- June 20, 2005

Oh, and there's more now... On July 28, it was reported that Bolton had given the Senate committee INACURATE INFORMATION.

John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday, responding to a Democratic critic.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency related to Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

When Bolton filled out a Senate questionnaire in connection with his nomination, “he didn’t recall being interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general. Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate,” Clay said. “He will correct it.”

The response came after Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserting Bolton had been interviewed and suggesting he had not been truthful in his questionnaire.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there. It gets even better:

A federal grand jury is investigating who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the news media. Biden’s initial request followed a report that Bolton was among State Department undersecretaries who “gave testimony” about a classified memo that has become an important piece of evidence in the leak investigation.

Ed Schulz was fuming about how Bolton didn't "remember". Who the hell doesn't remember a FEDERAL GRAND JURY TESTIMONY? Unless, of course, they've been investigated too many times and lost count. >.<

3. The people at UN hate him.

It doesn't matter what Kofi says... There's no way that ANYBODY working at the UN should be happy about this.

- United States was presumtuous, ARROGANT, and selfish in its "War on Terror"

- The current administration HATES the U.N. and nominated the guy who once said that knocking off ten floors of the UN building in New York City wouldn't make any difference and that the UN's only purpose in the world is to serve the United States foreign policy.

- If the next representative of an important member nation was one of the harshest critics of your organization, would you trust him?

- If other ambassadors in the UN don't trust the U.S. envoy, what can the U.S. accomplish? NOTHING.

Ah, so this presumtuous soundrel is nothing but TROUBLE:

Two months ago, while his confirmation was in trouble, Bolton began efforts to double the office space reserved within the State Department for the ambassador to the United Nations, according to three senior department officials who were involved in handling the request.

Previous ambassadors have kept a small staff in Washington in a modest suite. Bolton told several colleagues he needed more space and a larger staff in Washington because, if confirmed, he intended to spend more time here than his predecessors did. "Bolton isn't going to sit in New York while policy gets made in Washington"

Well, Mr. Bolton... We shall see just how PRODUCTIVE you are. How much State Department intelligence can you "fix" until your temporary term expires? How many diplomats can you scare away and offend with your unprofessional attitude? That's a lot of screwing-the-world to do before the fall of 2006. But I'm sure that your successor will very much enjoy the larger office space.