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You Say Recess, I Say Abscess
Aug. 2nd, 2005 08:22 amThe John Bolton recess nomination yesterday was much more than it appeared. It was frustrating to see the president try to use the event as another opportunity to label the Democrats as the reason for doing it when the problem was he couldn't count on enough votes in his own party to make it happen.
Many senators had asked the White House to release several documents about the service of John Bolton in previous work that he's done, documents that could reveal more incidences of inappropriate and abusive behavior with direct reports as has been hinted during the confirmation hearings. The White house stalled on these documents, at first to wait until the last minute hoping that the Senate would just go ahead and give him an up or down vote, then finally just giving up altogether knowing it could circumvent to whole process.
It's just another way that they could still get their way and save the Republican party from a potential split between the moderates who would have voted against Bolton and those other guys.
Of course it's just another way to get Karl Rove out of the headlines.
Of course it's also interesting to watch a little election in Ohio for an open House seat that had been held by the Republicans for years, but the popularity of Bush seems to be driving the potential voters to the Democratic candidate, Paul Hackett. Today's election is suddenly the center of attention for the RNC which has gone on the attack, spending a lot of money in attack ads for one little house seat. Still, Hackett, being a veteran, is hard to hit on the typical "he's not a patriot" nonsense that usually gets flung these days.
It will be interesting to see if this stands as a bellwether for the 2006 elections. Will the American public still go along with the fear mongering (barring the idea that something doesn't happen between now and then) or will they have had enough of the games that G.W. and Karl Rove have been playing? Time will tell.
Many senators had asked the White House to release several documents about the service of John Bolton in previous work that he's done, documents that could reveal more incidences of inappropriate and abusive behavior with direct reports as has been hinted during the confirmation hearings. The White house stalled on these documents, at first to wait until the last minute hoping that the Senate would just go ahead and give him an up or down vote, then finally just giving up altogether knowing it could circumvent to whole process.
It's just another way that they could still get their way and save the Republican party from a potential split between the moderates who would have voted against Bolton and those other guys.
Of course it's just another way to get Karl Rove out of the headlines.
Of course it's also interesting to watch a little election in Ohio for an open House seat that had been held by the Republicans for years, but the popularity of Bush seems to be driving the potential voters to the Democratic candidate, Paul Hackett. Today's election is suddenly the center of attention for the RNC which has gone on the attack, spending a lot of money in attack ads for one little house seat. Still, Hackett, being a veteran, is hard to hit on the typical "he's not a patriot" nonsense that usually gets flung these days.
It will be interesting to see if this stands as a bellwether for the 2006 elections. Will the American public still go along with the fear mongering (barring the idea that something doesn't happen between now and then) or will they have had enough of the games that G.W. and Karl Rove have been playing? Time will tell.
