We can understand the part about President Bush wanting to get a new Secretary of Defense in place ASAP but his insistence of pressing the nomination of highly controversial UN Ambassador John Bolton raises the question:
Does President George Bush have a fixation on weird facial hair? To wit:
The White House said today that it would seek Senate confirmation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s successor in the lame duck Congress that is about to reconvene, and that it would seek confirmation of United Nations Ambassador John R. Bolton as well.
Confirmation of Robert M. Gates to replace Mr. Rumsfeld and of Mr. Bolton, who was installed in the United Nations post under temporary status by President Bush, were two priorities cited by Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, on a day when Democrats flexed their new political muscle while exchanging conciliatory words with the president. Before having lunch with Democrats, Mr. Bush met with Senators Bill Frist of Tennessee, the retiring majority leader; Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican whip, and House Republican leaders, Mr. Snow said.“The readout I got from the meeting is, it was primarily focused on the lame-duck session,� Mr. Snow said at a White House briefing. He ticked off a list of pending issues, which he said included “the nominations of John Bolton and also, if possible, Bob Gates.�
Shortly afterward, the White House officially announced one nomination: “John Robert Bolton, of Maryland, to be Representative of the United States of America to the Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations during his tenure of service as Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations.�
It’s mistake Number One in the Unveiling of The New George Bush, which is reportedly closer to The Old Governor George Bush who was more bipartisan and took great pains to work with rather than rile Democrats in Texas.
It seems like The Old New George Bush trumped The New George Bush which had replaced The Old Governor George Bush.
Bolton faced a hornet’s nest of opposition when Bush first nominated him and the nomination flopped so GWB plopped Bolton in place as a recess apointment anyway. In other words, repeated attempts to get Bolton in place by political consensus (a vote) failed so Bush did what he has done in other vital policy decisions that could and/or should have involved Congress: he just used executive power to the fullest to do it anyway, not bothering with a trifling thing such as garnering widespread political support….which coincidentally ensures that decisions enjoy widespread accepted legitimacy and don’t polarize.
But Bolton’s critics were a bit off base, too.
In reality, Bolton was NOT half as bad as UN Ambassador as critics had warned — the UN didn’t fold, Bolton didn’t spark a controversy a minute, other delegates didn’t walk out and other nations didn’t look down on the United States more because of the UN Ambassador (the Iraq war took the place of that). Even so he still remains a highly controversial figure.
It underscores Bush’s seeming inability to take actions that will DECREASE political partisan conflict. And the Bolton nomination is already doomed. Steve Clemmons:
Word has just reached me from a well-placed source that the White House has continued to push John Bolton’s confirmation prospects as US Ambassador to the United Nations despite the election outcome.
Another highly placed source has informed me that in just a few minutes Senator Lincoln Chafee is calling a press conference to state categorically that he will not support John Bolton’s confirmation in the upcoming lame duck session. The Bolton confirmation will be officially dead in a few minutes…The President is showing that he is not as ready as people think to collaborate with the new Senate and new House.
And, indeed, the timing is curious: it comes right at the time when Bush and his associates are suggesting that he is about to undergo a transformation. Ed Morrissey sums it up best:
So what’s next for George Bush after having his party stripped of Congressional control? The final two years of a two-term presidency normally get devoted to The Legacy, as Oval Office occupants start to look longingly at the history books and wonder how their own presidencies will be recorded in them. No President wants The Legacy to be gridlock and can-kicking, and so Bush has made moves towards the Democrats in a manner similar to what Arnold Schwarzenegger did in California after a series of ill-conceived referenda.
….Bush wants to still be able to get work done in the final two years, and he understands that he will have to compromise on a broad front with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to do so. He isn’t Ronald Reagan in that sense, but that’s because he doesn’t have Reagan’s approval ratings, either. He’s a minority president beset by a wave of disapproval, and he has few options outside of outright political warfare — and in this case, the Democrats have all the big guns now. It’s realpolitik in a different arena; Schwarzenegger showed how to survive and even thrive in that environment, and Bush appears ready to use his playbook.
But trying to shove through Bolton isn’t a stellar idea.
It sounds as if the idea coming from the same brilliant person who gave Bush a wonderful idea for the mid-terms:”Hey! Why don’t we try and link the Iraq war with the war on terror, say the Democrats’ who want change really want defeat, deny we ever suggested stay the course and make sure you’re on television all the time campaigning for Republican candidates so your popularity can rub off on them. We know these polls are all wrong and most Americans really love the job you’re doing. And forget about mentioning that you’re considering dumping Rumsfeld. The weekend before the election announce that he’ll serve out the rest of your term! It’ll be sure to help Republican candidates!!”
In any event, Bush should have known the Bolton nomination was cursed from the start DUE TO THIS.
UPDATE: But IS it cursed? A reader in comments (see below) raises the point that perhaps the Bolton nomination was part of a deal in exchange for the booting of Donald Rumsfeld. But REPORTS LIKE THIS say the nomination is still in trouble.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.