According to the Moderate Voice.Joe Gandelman President Bush has failed his first test of bipartisanship 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 ...

come to think of it, that's what annoys me about all of this. The democrats are after style over real substance. What we have in that chair right now, is substance. Someone was actually willing to represent the United States and its interests. That's not what the democrats what.

THere's that 't' word again....

Which could also be taken as the Democrat party’s rejection of Bolton is down to political point scoring as well, no?

Absolutely.

But then again: so what? It is like saying "he hit me first". I don't excuse the Democrats in this, but I am being pragmatic here: there is no way the Bolton is going to get confirmed, so why not move on to something else?

Further, I would argue that this is ultimately about partisan point-scoring far more than it is about the core necessity of Bolton’s work at the UN.

Which could also be taken as the Democrat party's rejection of Bolton is down to political point scoring as well, no?

With all that Bolton has accomplished, I guess this is a good chance to see if the Democrats are really serious about doing what is right in a bipartisan fashion, or whether it was all smoke and mirrors to trick their voters into voting for them.
A .....

Heh!

I knew point one before I mentioned it, thats why I mentioned it.(being a smartass)

and I was gonna rehash the "a comittee is not the senate" but thats been flogged already.

I do still think it makes more sense. Just as Patrick said "take it to a vote, and it's over" but "the senate" has been circumvented by "senate rules" which is different from "The Senate."

I don't really care much, but there just seemed to be a lot of gaming with this stuff in the recent years (though I guess they got rid of the "blue card?" or whatever it was called for judicial nominations? where any senator from the state of a nominated justice could arbitrarily hold any nominee, so I guess I'm just a newcomer (not to mention an amateur))

Here is what its all about.
Nearly five years after 9/11, we are well into an epic, generational struggle. A struggle that pits freedom against tyranny … hope against fear … democracy against Islamic radicalism. The men and women of our A...

Two points:

1) Executive offices are the ones who provide security clearances, but that isn't the issue here.

2) The Constitution vests the Senate with the power to reject a Presidential appointment. That is simply the way it works.

Bolton is qualified and carries no baggage such a scandalous past incident.

Unless you count all the times he sold dope disguised as a nun...

And by the way, does anyone else here remember the GOP's blithe tossing-about of a so-called 'nuclear option' to take filibustering off the table for certain subjects? About how people on both the left _and_ right went on about how unutterably stupid that threat was, given that _someday_ the Dems might just be in the majority again?

[snark]Welcome to someday, bitches...[/snark]

I also think that it was great when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn and Coca Cola was made with sugar rather than corn syrup. All of those days are gone and there's no use in mourning them too much.