Bolton: Off to Recess?

Civil rights. Women's rights. Gay rights. What they have in common is that at one point or another in our great country's history the "majority" fought hard, often violently, against them becoming a part of society's fabric. As proven many times, the majority is often quite misguided and just plain wrong. So it is with little attention I pay to the Republicans' claim that a majority of Senators wants John Bolton approved for the UN Ambassador job. Who cares what the majority wants? Right now, the majority is comprised of power-hungry peddlers of political and religious dogma. We have a process here in the US that allows the minority, the little guy, to stall the nomination of an undesirable candidate until those in the majority submit another name that can pass the compromise test. And so once again yesterday the Democrats defeated the cloture vote, shoving John Bolton back into the arms of his chief benefactor, President Bush. And once again Bush has a decision to make: stand firm and send him back again and face almost certain defeat unless he hands over the Bolton documents requested by Sen's Joe Biden (D-DE), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and the Foreign Relations Commitee, or pull the ultimate power play and appoint Bolton during either the Fourth of July recess or sometime in August when the Senate shuts down. A recess appointment would allow Bolton to hang onto the job until August '06 when the 109th Congress adjourns. If history is any relevant indicator, Bush will not back down. His stubbornness and arrogance won't let him. In fact, my money's on him bristling with even greater anger and frustration that the Democrats just simply aren't lying down and letting Bush, Frist & Co. do whatever the heck they want with this country. Bush most likely will sneak Bolton through as an attempt to save face and that of his hand-picked successor, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). As if Bush's approval and performance ratings weren't low enough, a recess appointment of Bolton would be yet another sign of his second-term failure and careen him further into lame-duckville. Andy